Research with ChatGPT
Use search and deep research to find, analyze, and synthesize information from across the web.
ChatGPT can be a helpful research partner because it quickly brings together information from many sources, making it easier to explore ideas, spot patterns, and understand complex topics. By reasoning through context, citing sources, and producing clear, structured summaries, it helps turn open questions into well-defined insights.
There are two different ways to search the public internet with ChatGPT—search and deep research. Below is an explanation of both, and when to use each.
ChatGPT search allows ChatGPT to pull in the latest information from the internet directly into your conversations. This means you can go beyond ChatGPT’s built-in training knowledge and get up-to-date answers on things like current events, market trends, competitor activity, or niche details not included in its training data.
Instead of toggling between multiple browser tabs and summarizing information yourself, search brings those updates directly into ChatGPT, streamlining your research and saving you time. It also makes it easy to combine fresh web data with the reasoning and summarization power of ChatGPT models.
Open a new chat in ChatGPT.
Ask a question that requires current or detailed information (e.g., “What are the top three AI trends in healthcare in 2025?”), or click Web Search from your tools menu.
Look for the small globe icon 🌐 next to the model’s response—this indicates that search was used.
Click the citation links in the response to review the original sources.
Follow-up with clarifying prompts, like “Summarize this in 3 bullet points for executives” or “Turn this into a customer-facing email draft.”
Citations: Always review linked sources before making decisions, since search results reflect what’s available on the web.
Scope: Search won’t replace specialized databases (e.g., subscription research tools or proprietary data).
Admin settings: In enterprise environments, Workspace Owners may choose to enable or disable search.
Deep research in ChatGPT uses reasoning to quickly gather, summarize, and interpret extensive information from across the web, helping you answer complex questions more thoroughly than a standard web search.
Every output is designed to be documented, with clear citations to sources, making it easy to verify and reference the information. Deep research is also particularly effective at finding niche, non-intuitive information that would otherwise require reviewing many sources.
Unlike a traditional web search, deep research is agentic, meaning that it actively plans and carries out a multi-step research process—searching, evaluating sources, refining queries, and synthesizing findings—rather than simply returning a list of links.
1. Open ChatGPT and select deep research from your tools menu
2. Ask a clear and detailed prompt. Include your topic, goal, timeframe, and key details. If deep research needs more context, it will automatically ask follow up questions.
I’m researching [topic] for [audience/decision/meeting]. Provide a report including recent key opportunities and risks, and 3-5 actionable insights.
3. Review your report
Deep research may run for 5–30 minutes while it explores the web. You’ll get a notification when your report is ready.
Ask follow-up questions or request further analysis, and deep research will refine the output as needed.
These features sound similar, but are best for different use cases. Below is a quick comparison of the two features:
Leit | Djúprannsókn | |
|---|---|---|
Tilgangur | Finna fljótt tilteknar staðreyndir, skjöl eða nýlegar upplýsingar á vefnum eða í tengdum heimildum. | Framkvæma ítarlega greiningu í mörgum skrefum á flóknum eða óljósum spurningum sem krefjast raka og samþættingar upplýsinga úr mörgum heimildum. |
Dæmigerð notkun | Finna nýlega fréttatilkynningu, tæknilýsingu vöru, fréttagrein eða staka tölulega staðreynd (t.d. „Hversu margir sóttu sumarólympíuleikana í fyrra?“). | Kanna víðtækari spurningar eins og „Hvaða þættir hafa áhrif á aðsókn að stórum alþjóðlegum íþróttaviðburðum?“ eða „Hvernig búa ólík lönd sig undir að halda Ólympíuleikana?“ |
Ítarleiki niðurstaðna | Skilar hnitmiðuðum niðurstöðum, beinum svörum eða tenglum — líkt og snjöll vefleit. | Býr til ítarlegar samantektir studdar gögnum, oft með heimildatilvísunum, mati á kostum og göllum og skýringum á rökunum að baki niðurstöðum. |
Hraði | Hröð — tekur yfirleitt nokkrar sekúndur. | Hægari — getur tekið nokkrar mínútur eða lengur þar sem unnið er með rök í mörgum skrefum. |
Hversu nýlegar eru upplýsingarnar? | Setur nýjustu tiltæku upplýsingarnar í forgang; hentar vel fyrir nýjustu fréttir eða gögn sem úreldast fljótt. | Notar nýlegar heimildir þegar það á við en leggur áherslu á skilning á samhengi, ekki aðeins hversu nýlegar upplýsingarnar eru. |
Flækjustig spurningar | Hentar best fyrir skýrt afmarkaðar, sértækar fyrirspurnir. | Hentar best fyrir opnar, kannandi spurningar eða spurningar um stefnumótun þar sem ekkert eitt svar er rétt. |
