Free ChatGPT users are finally getting Deep Research access from today, but there are restrictions

• A lightweight Deep Research is rolling out to free-tier users
• It’s based on the ChatGPT 4o-mini model
• Plus users will also get access to it after they hit their usage limits

It’s the news that all ChatGPT free users have been waiting for: Deep Research is finally coming to the free tier of ChatGPT. However, the new version of the popular research tool is not quite the same as the one currently enjoyed by Pro, Plus, Teams and Enterprise users.

The new Deep Research, which is rolling out to all free-tier users starting from today, is described by OpenAI as ‘lightweight’. It's powered by a version of ChatGPT o4-mini in contrast to the existing Deep Research, which is powered by a version of ChatGPT-o3.

OpenAI describes the new lightweight Deep Research as “nearly as intelligent as the Deep Research people already know and love, while being significantly cheaper to serve.”

In a tweet on the subject OpenAI shared a graph showing accuracy rates for the new lightweight Deep Research compared to the original Deep Research and the o3 model.

The bad news is that free-tier users are going to be restricted to five uses per month, so don’t click the Deep Research button (when you get it) unless you really need to use it.

Expanding usage limits for Plus users

At the same time OpenAI says it's expanding its usage limits for Deep Research for existing Plus and Teams users. However, it appears that after your 10 monthly uses have been used up the ‘expansion’ is achieved by giving you access to the lightweight version instead.

After usage limits on the original ChatGPT Deep Research have been reached people will automatically switch to the lightweight version of Deep Research and gain a further 15 uses a month, leading to some ChatGPT users on X accusing the company of being poor value compared to Google’s Gemini, which allows up to 20 uses per day for its Deep Research tool on its Advanced plan and 10 per month for free Gemini users.

ChatGPT Pro users get 125 Deep Research uses a month, with an additional 125 lightweight uses a month, while Enterprise users simply get 10 uses of the original Deep Research a month.

Using Deep Research

To use Deep Research you simply select the 'Deep research' button while using ChatGPT.

Deep Research has agentic qualities, meaning you can give it a task and it will continue researching for you, under its own steam, until it has completed the task, producing a full report complete with citations.

Reports can take several minutes to generate, and involve searching the web for sources, which makes Deep Research most suited to answering complex questions, rather than the usual back and forth chats that people have with AI chatbots.

I've found that Deep Research works best for subjects like literature reviews, market research, or for helping me make big life decisions like deciding where to live.

The news comes hot on the heels of the announcement that ChatGPT Plus, Teams and Enterprise users are getting expanded usage limits, with 100 minutes of ChatGPT-o3 usage per week and 300 minutes of ChatGPT o4-mini per day.

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