Deep Research and Agent Mode: A Thorough Explanation of Functions, Usage Scenes, and Differences
ChatGPT offers two advanced modes: Deep Research, which specializes in multi-step research, and Agent Mode, which handles everything from research to actual operation. This article describes the features of each mode, the key points to distinguish between them, and their similarities and differences in an easy-to-understand manner.
-Agent Mode Agent Mode Agent Mode **Agent Mode
🧠 What is Deep Research?
Deep Research is a mode of researching across multiple sources of information and generating a report that integrates and organizes them. The OpenAI Help Center describes it as follows
Deep Research is the ability to "reason, investigate, and integrate information to perform complex online tasks and generate documented reports"
Features
- Automatically performs multi-step research (multi-step search)
- Summarizes and integrates by referencing multiple sources
- Generates reports while verifying the accuracy of information
- Automatically adds citation links to results
Ideal for
- Academic research and report writing
- Competitive and market analysis
- Organizing trends and research developments
- Long-form output with emphasis on reliability
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⚙️ What is Agent Mode?
Agent Mode is a mode for ChatGPT to "not only think, but also act". In addition to research, Agent Mode allows for autonomous file manipulation, scheduling, API integration, report creation, etc.
ChatGPT Agent is "an agent that understands the user's intentions and completes tasks autonomously by combining the necessary tools and services":contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}.
Features
- Automates Web search, application operation, and external tool integration
- Divides tasks, autonomously determines and executes them
- Modifies and retries according to the situation
- Can be integrated with other AI and services depending on settings
Suitable for
- Series of workflow from research + report + execution
- Automation with schedule, file, and web operations
- Business assistant or agent development
- AI business agents" combining multiple tools
--- "AI business agent" that combines multiple tools
🔍 Comparison: Deep Research vs Agent Mode
Deep Research*.
- Purpose: "deep research" into information
- Main capabilities: web search, summarization, analysis
- Output: Report format with citations
- Interactivity: Question-centered and static (user-driven)
- Ideal for: Academic research, reports, market analysis, etc.
Agent Mode.
- Purpose: "look up" information and act on it
- Main Capabilities: Search + Execution (operation/automation)
- Output: Execution result + report
- Interactivity: Autonomous and dynamic (AI makes decisions and proceeds)
- Suitable scenarios: automation, assistant, practical processing, etc.
--- (e.g., automation, assistant, practical processing)
🧩 Commonalities and complementary relationships
- Both are next-generation functions that take advantage of GPT-5's "inference capability
- Deep Research is strong in "knowledge deepening " and Agent Mode is strong in "knowledge utilization ".
- It is expected that both will be integrated (research + execution) in the future.
---Deep Research "Knowledge Deepening ", Agent Mode **"Knowledge Utilization
🧭 Summary: Which should you use?
- Deep Research: When you want to do research, analysis, and organization
- Agent Mode: When you want to do research + execution all at once
In other words, the former is a "researcher-type AI" and the latter is a "secretary-type AI. By using them according to your purpose, you can maximize the potential of ChatGPT.
---The following is an example of the use of ChatGPT