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OpenAI reveals ChatGPT agent for ‘deep research’

PLUS: How to build your own free AI Operator

Author

Rowan Cheung
February 03, 2025

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The AI transition from instant answers to complex reasoning just leveled up again, with OpenAI’s new feature putting even the hardest benchmarks on notice.

With ‘Deep Research’ autonomously crushing complex research tasks in minutes, the evolution of how we use AI assistants just took another major leap forward.

In today’s AI rundown:

  • OpenAI debuts AI research assistant

  • OpenAI introduces o3-mini reasoning model

  • How to build your own free AI Operator

  • Sam Altman’s stance on open source

  • 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

Image source: OpenAI

The Rundown: OpenAI just launched Deep Research, a new ChatGPT feature that conducts extensive web research on complex topics and delivers detailed reports with citations in under 30 minutes.

The details:

  • The system uses a specialized version of o3 to analyze text, images, and PDFs across multiple sources, producing comprehensive research summaries.

  • Initial access is limited to Pro subscribers ($200/mo) with 100 queries/month, but if safety metrics remain stable, it will expand to Plus and Team users within weeks.

  • Research tasks take between 5-30 minutes to complete, with users receiving a list of clarifying questions to start and notifications when results are ready.

  • Deep Research achieved a 26.6% on Humanity’s Last Exam, significantly outperforming other AI models like Gemini Thinking (6.2%) and GPT-4o (3.3%).

Why it matters: ChatGPT excels at quick, instant answers, but Deep Research represents the first major consumer attempt at tackling complex tasks that take humans days. Combined with the release of Operator, the landscape is shifting towards longer thinking with autonomous actions — and better results to show for it.

TOGETHER WITH VANTA

The Rundown: Join John Hammond — cybersecurity researcher, practitioner, and content creator — and Matt Cooper, Vanta’s Director of GRC, for a fireside chat on AI, security maturity, and the top security risks in 2025.

What you’ll gain:

  • A deep dive into 2025’s top cyber risks, including the impact of AI

  • Actionable insights to refine your security priorities

  • Strategies tailored to your organization’s security maturity level

  • A live Q&A at the end

Save your spot and get ready to future-proof your approach to cybersecurity.

OPENAI

Image source: OpenAI

The Rundown: On Friday, OpenAI released o3-mini, a new cost-efficient reasoning model that brings advanced STEM capabilities to both free and paid users while significantly reducing costs and response times compared to previous versions.

The details:

  • Free users can access reasoning capabilities for the first time via o3-mini, with paid users getting expanded rate limits of up to 150 messages daily.

  • o3-mini shows particular strength in technical domains like math and coding, matching or exceeding o1's performance while responding 24% faster.

  • Developers can also fine-tune the ‘reasoning effort’ with three settings — low, medium, and high — to balance speed and accuracy for different use cases.

  • The system costs 63% less to run than its predecessor, bringing the price down to $1.10 / million input tokens while maintaining competitive performance.

Why it matters: DeepSeek has dominated the headlines over the past week, but OpenAI always seems to have another ace up its sleeve. o3-mini will expose the free tier of AI users to their first ‘reasoning’ experience—and with the full o3 coming in ‘less than a few months,’ the next step up in the model cycle is just around the corner.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: With this tutorial, you can run a powerful AI browser automation tool on your computer that can control web browsers and perform tasks autonomously without paying for expensive subscriptions like ChatGPT’s $200/month plan.

Step-by-step:

  1. Download Ollama and install a language model (e.g., deepseek-r1:14b or qwen2.5:7b).

  2. Clone the web interface repository with git clone. (https://github.com/browser-use/web-ui.git)

  3. Set up Python environment and install dependencies.

  4. Launch the interface, configure your AI assistant, and see it perform web actions for you.

Pro tip: Start with basic tasks to understand the system's capabilities before moving to complex automation. We just did a full workshop on how to set it up properly, which you can access here.

PRESENTED BY INNOVATING WITH AI

The Rundown: Innovating with AI’s new program, AI Consultancy Project, equips AI enthusiasts with all the resources to capitalize on the rapidly growing AI consulting market – which is set to 8x to $54.7B by 2032.

The program offers:

  • Tools and framework to find clients and deliver top-notch services

  • A 6-month roadmap to build a 6-figure AI consulting business

  • Student landing their first AI client in as little as 3 days

OPENAI

Image source: Reddit

The Rundown: OpenAI held a Reddit AMA following the launch of its o3-mini model, with CEO Sam Altman, CPO Kevin Weil, and others tackling questions ranging from candid commentary on open-source tech to upcoming feature and model timelines.

The details:

  • Altman revealed that he personally thinks ‘we have been on the wrong side of history’ regarding open source and that OpenAI needs to figure out a strategy.

  • The CEO also said that he guessed the full o3 would be released in ‘more than a few weeks, less than a few months.’

  • Altman also commented on DeepSeek, calling it a ‘very good model’ and saying OpenAI will ‘produce better models, but maintain less of a lead.’

  • Weil provided a few nuggets about upcoming releases, saying more agents and a new image generator will be available very soon.

Why it matters: The biggest headline is the open-source commentary, which is the biggest criticism OpenAI faces. While no changes seem imminent (Altman said not everyone at the company shares his opinion, and it's not a high priority), a shift in any capacity would be a paradigm-altering moment for the entire industry.

QUICK HITS

U.S. AI czar David Sacks shared a new report estimating DeepSeek has spent over $1B on computing, calling the $6M training cost number ‘highly misleading.’

The EU activated the first phase of its AI Act, banning AI systems deemed ‘unacceptably risky’ and imposing penalties of up to $35M euros.

Google’s X moonshot lab launched Heritable Agriculture, an agriculture company using AI and machine learning to accelerate plant breeding for improved crop yields.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman announced a new cross-disciplinary research unit, recruiting economists, psychologists, and others to study AI's societal impact.

MIT researchers unveiled ChromoGen, an AI model that predicts 3D genome structures in minutes instead of days and enables DNA analysis and how if impacts cell function and disease.

Security researchers discovered an exposed DeepSeek database containing over 1M user prompts and API key records, raising vulnerability and privacy concerns.

COMMUNITY

Join our next advanced workshop on Tuesday at 3 PM EST for a special 90-minute deep dive into building revenue-generating mobile apps with Kevin Hou, Head of Product Engineering at Codeium.

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See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team

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