OpenAI to Expand ChatGPT's Deep Research Feature to Free Tier Amid Growing Competition

Deep Reasoning is coming to ChatGPT free, but I think it's still worth paying for ChatGPT Plus

The Plus tier still offers considerable advantages over the free tier ChatGPT's Deep Research has proved to be incredibly popular. It acts like a team of researchers who head off online and research a complex subject for you before returning with a full report, including sources, on the subject you've asked it to investigate. For example, using Deep Research you could ask ChatGPT to compile a report on how the gaming industry has changed in the last three years and it would get back to you with a full report complete with data tables and sources. Deep Research falls under the category of an AI agent because it can act independently. You effectively give it a task and off it goes to research it for you before using its AI to apply reasoning before coming to conclusions. Deep Research started off on the Pro tier of ChatGPT, which costs a whopping $200 (£165 /AU$325) a month, but very quickly moved to the more reasonable $20 (£16 / AU$30) Plus tier, where I've been enjoying it for the last few weeks. It was always the plan that Deep Reasoning would move to the free tier of ChatGPT eventually, but it looks like this may happen sooner than later. X user Tibor Blaho recently noted, in a discussion about Deep Research with two of OpenAI's Technical Staff, that they revealed it was coming to the free tier very soon. While this is obviously great news for free tier users, it brings into question whether the Plus tier of ChatGPT is still worth paying for. I think it is, and I'll give you a few reasons why: Sure, Deep Research may be coming to the free tier of ChatGPT very soon, but I bet you it's limited to just a small sample of uses a day. If you've been following ChatGPT's recent server meltdown caused by the release of its native image generation abilities you'll be aware that ChatGPT has limited its image generation allowances to just three images on the free tier. Being able to generate only three images a day is hopelessly restrictive, and while they may up the limit in the future, I would expect the release of Deep Research into the wild to elicit a similarly huge response from the public, causing yet another server meltdown and tough restrictions being imposed to the free tier. Basically, everything is limited in the free tier, including things like how many files you can upload to ChatGPT a day. On the Plus account, you don't need to worry about that. While there are still some limits, you rarely ever get close to them. Having a Plus account also comes with a whole range of benefits, but the main one is access to more LLMs. On the Plus tier, you can (currently) access ChatGPT 4o, 4o-mini, 4, 4o with scheduled tasks, 4.5, o1, o3-mini and o3. That's a lot of choice! On the free tier, you only have access to ChatGPT 4o-mini, with some very limited access to 4o and o3-mini. You'll find that these different LLMs are more useful when it comes to doing complex tasks that require more reasoning, not to mention that you get a chance to play around with the research preview of OpenAI's very latest model, ChatGPT-4.5 On a Plus account, you get limited access to Sora AI video generation. Sora is great, but to really use it properly and create clips that don't have a watermark on you need a Pro account, (provided you are in the US) you can at least experiment with it in the Plus account, which is great fun. Advanced Voice mode is one of the best ChatGPT features, and you need a Plus account to access it for more than 15 minutes a month. 15 minutes is really just a preview of the feature, and you'll find you run out of time before you've really had a chance to explore. There are a range of different voices available for you to choose from, and it makes ChatGPT feel more personal and intimate. You can access Advanced Voice mode from the ChatGPT website or its various apps, including mobile, and for many people, it's their preferred way of using ChatGPT. Those are the main benefits to using ChatGPT Plus, but of course you get everything that you get in the free tier as well, including ChatGPT Canvas and ChatGPT search. While ChatGPT search is available in both the free and Plus accounts, there are some other features that you only get with Plus like projects, which is a way to group files and chats together, tasks, which can be scheduled for another time, and the ability to create custom GPTs, so you can create exactly the sort of chatbot you want for a specific task. All in all, there are more than enough good reasons to keep your ChatGPT Plus subscription, even if Deep Research becomes available on the free tier. I think you'd find that going back to the free tier from the joys of a Plus subscription would be a deeply frustrating experience.

OpenAI plans to make Deep Research free on ChatGPT, in response to competition

OpenAI has confirmed that its Deep Research function will soon be available for free tier ChatGPT users. The feature has been available since early February to Plus, Pro, Enterprise, and Edu subscribers; however, the AI company plans to expand availability beyond its paid users. Deep Research goes beyond the standard query results of the brand's more traditional AI models. The AI agent has the ability to do extended research tasks on command without the help of a human. The feature can provide a detailed report on the subject of your choosing that might take between five and 30 minutes to compile. Recommended Videos OpenAI technical staff member, Isa Fulford, recently detailed on an X webcast that Deep Research free availability will soon follow the other tiers. However, she was not able to confirm a specific launch timeline for the function, Android Headlines noted. "If you haven't tried deep research, it's available now for Plus, Pro, Teams, Enterprise, and Edu users, and we'll launch it for free very soon," she said. Deep Research is available as part of the ChatGPT Plus subscription, which goes for $20 per month. Meanwhile, the ChatGPT Pro subscription is available for $200 per month, providing more AI models and greater research ability. OpenAI has already offered some of its pricier features for free in various capacities. Those with a free Microsoft account can use the 'Think Deeper' feature through the Copilot web-based chat or downloadable Copilot app for free. The feature is powered by OpenAI's o1 reasoning model and is essentially a step before Deep Research. OpenAI also recently made its 4o image generation feature available to free ChatGPT users with a three-mockup limit, whereas the paid tiers have more freedom. OpenAI has likely taken a step to make its Deep Research function free on ChatGPT after competitor AI brands have made their options more readily available. Google recently made its Deep Research feature on Gemini free about two weeks ago, when it was previously a Google One AI Premium perk. Perplexity AI also provides its Deep Research feature for free; however, Android Headlines noted there are usage limits on the agent.

ChatGPT Free Users Might Soon Get Access to the Deep Research Feature

Deep Research outputs can take between five to 30 minutes to generate OpenAI is said to be planning to expand its Deep Research feature to the users on the free tier of ChatGPT. The feature was introduced in February as an agentic tool that can autonomously conduct multi-step research on complex topics by looking for relevant information on the Internet. Powered by a custom o3 artificial intelligence (AI) model, it is currently only available to the paid subscribers of ChatGPT. Notably, even if Deep Research does make it to the free tier, it is likely to come with high rate limits. Tibor Blaho, Lead Engineer at AIPRM, and an AI enthusiast, shared a screenshot from an OpenAI webcast on X (formerly known as Twitter) highlighting that Deep Research could soon come to ChatGPT's free tier. In the webcast, OpenAI's member of technical staff, Isa Fullford, is said to have confirmed the expansion of the agentic feature. However, no expected date for the expansion was shared. Separately, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that new releases from the company are going to be delayed due to the increased server load from the new image generation feature's usage. So, even if Deep Research is making its way to the free tier, it is likely not going to be before the company gains control over its capacity issues. Even if the feature is released to the free tier, it is likely going to have a high rate limit since Deep Research is an agentic tool that requires high GPU processing. As such, users could be limited to a few runs of the feature in a month. Notably, ChatGPT Plus users also have access to the AI agent with rate limits, and higher usage is only available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers, the company's most premium tier. Deep Research in ChatGPT (not to be confused with the same-name feature in Gemini or Perplexity) is a multi-step research tool that can independently run web searches on a topic and prepare a detailed report to save users time of manual research. At the time of launch, the company said it is built for users who do intensive research-based work in areas such as finance, science, policy, and engineering.