ChatGPT’s awesome Deep Research gets a light version and goes free for all
One of the best ChatGPT tools is Deep Research, but so far, it has required a subscription. OpenAI now offers a lighter version and expanded it to free users.
FrankLin
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
There’s a lot of AI hype floating around, and it seems every brand wants to cram it into their products. But there are a few remarkably useful tools, as well, though they are pretty expensive. ChatGPT’s Deep Research is one such feature, and it seems OpenAI is finally feeling a bit generous about it.
The company has created a lightweight version of Deep Research that is powered by its new o4-mini language model. OpenAI says this variant is “more cost-efficient while preserving high quality.” More importantly, it is available to use for free without any subscription caveat.
Why does it matter?
Deep Research, as the name suggests, is an agentic feature that performs a comprehensive web research on any topic and provides responses in the form of a well-drafted paper. Compared to the typical chatbot answer, it feels more like a research assignment.
The lightweight version of deep research is powered by a version of OpenAI o4-mini and is nearly as intelligent as the deep research people already know and love, while being significantly cheaper to serve.
Responses will typically be shorter while maintaining the depth and… pic.twitter.com/H2UD5GThVj
You can narrow down the research to a specific type of sources, such as academic papers or corporate press releases, and get a well-curated multi-page answer with all the citations, headings, tables, and bullet points. In a nutshell, Deep Research accomplishes in minutes what would usually take hours of internet research and writing for a person.
At the same time, this process is extremely resource-intensive, and that’s why it has remained exclusive to the paid ChatGPT users. Thanks to the new lightweight version, it is not only reaching out to free-tier users, but also expanding the search limit for subscribers.
What’s the new benefit?
OpenAI says ChatGPT users can launch up to five Deep Research queries each month. So far, the company has only allowed one attempt per month for free users. Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Perplexity also offer this convenience.
A sample of Deep Research query. Nadeem Sarwar / Digital TrendsFor users who pay a $20 monthly fee for a ChatGPT Plus subscription, they get a window of 25 Deep Research queries per month. The same limit is also applicable for ChatGPT’s Education, Team, and Enterprise packages. The $200/month Pro package will give you 250 attempts each month.
Once that limit is exhausted, users are automatically shifted to the lightweight version of Deep Research. OpenAI says this iteration is “nearly as intelligent as the deep research people already know and love.”
The only difference is that the length of responses will be smaller, but they won’t compromise on the depth of research. This is fantastic news for users who couldn’t afford a subscription fee, but still wanted to use a powerful AI tool that can get serious work done instead of just creating fun Ghibli-style images.
Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…
OpenAI might start watermarking ChatGPT images — but only for free users
Everyone has been talking about ChatGPT's new image-generation feature lately, and it seems the excitement isn't over yet. As always, people have been poking around inside the company's apps and this time, they've found mentions of a watermark feature for generated images.
Spotted by X user Tibor Blaho, the line of code image_gen_watermark_for_free seems to suggest that the feature would only slap watermarks on images generated by free users -- giving them yet another incentive to upgrade to a paid subscription.
OpenAI adjusts AI roadmap for better GPT-5
OpenAI is reconfiguring its rollout plan for upcoming AI models. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman shared on social media on Friday that it will delay the launch of its GPT-5 large language model (LLM) in favor of some lighter reasoning models to release first.
The brand will now launch new o3 and o4-mini reasoning models in the coming weeks as an alternative to the GPT-5 launch fans were expecting. In this time, OpenAI will be smoothing out some issues in developing the LLM before a final rollout. The company hasn’t detailed a specific timeline, just indicating that GPT-5 should be available in the coming months.
ChatGPT Plus is free for a limited time: Here’s how to check if you qualify
ChatGPT didn't just emerge onto the AI scene, it birthed an entire revolution of AI assistants and agents and made them accessible to consumers who were not so friendly with technology. Despite the space now being overcrowded with numerous intelligent chatbots and wrapper apps, ChatGPT is still the most popular of them all. And while you get plenty of features for free now, ChatGPT Plus, its paid tier, gets deeper thinking abilities, priority in times of traffic surge, and quicker access to new models. The downside, however, it is $20 monthly subscription. Thankfully, a select few people can get it for free now.
OpenAI's CEO and co-founder Sam Altman recently announced on X that ChatGPT Plus will be available for free until the end of May. However, the offer is only applicable if you are a college student, and more specifically, studying in a "degree-granting schools in the United States and Canada." The idea basically is to gain popularity among college-goers by helping them cram more before finals in the coming weeks.
