Many believe 2025 would be the year of AI agents—autonomous systems made to carry out certain jobs with little assistance from humans—if last year was characterized by ground-breaking AI models with remarkable conversational abilities.
These specialized tools do various activities that go beyond content creation on their own, going beyond basic chat interfaces.
When You.com unveiled their ground-breaking research tool in late 2024, the excitement surrounding research agents grew.
In response, Google swiftly released Gemini’s research agent, which costs $20 a month for Gemini Advanced customers and can provide in-depth, citation-rich analyses that cover dozens of pages.
Elon Musk’s xAI revealed deep research capabilities in Grok-3 a few days after OpenAI entered the competition with its research assistant powered by GPT-4.5 in February.
While OpenAI costs $20 for 10 monthly users in its Plus tier and $200 for 120 monthly users in its Pro tier, Grok and Gemini now provide their research agents for free.
However, which one yields the most beneficial outcomes? To assess how well these virtual research partners function when faced with the same tasks, we put each agent through testing.
These AI systems’ distinct personalities emerge as soon as you give them research tasks.
ChatGPT adopts a deliberate, cautious approach, seeking clarification before moving further. By first defining exact criteria around user intent, this cautious method is appropriate to reduce hallucinations and maximize relevance.
Additionally, it keeps the model from making mistakes and straying down blind paths.
Gemini functions more like a cooperative research partner and is less overt.
It will create an organized research plan before you begin, which you may review and adjust before carrying out. Users have more control over the course of the research right from the start because to this open method.
Additionally, it is much more detailed and allows users to have more control over the research agent. They can add, remove, and adjust phases until the ideal plan is completed.
In keeping with its Musk-influenced roots, Grok-3 foregoes the small talk and gets right to the point.
Just instant research execution with an emphasis on producing data as soon as possible—no plans, no questions.
You must be quite specific in your query if you want to get good results with Grok.
These early exchanges show the underlying ideologies guiding each system’s information-gathering strategy, not merely interface variations.
Speed
The performance disparities in our timed trials were pronounced:
At exactly 16:27, all three systems are started:
At 16:30 (only three minutes), Grok-3 was the first to cross the finish line.
At 16:38 (eleven minutes), Gemini finished its investigation.
Results from ChatGPT were finally sent at 16:43 (16 minutes).
The fastest and slowest options are separated by an astounding 433% in time.
For comparison, Grok-3 might be able to perform five different investigations or carry out five different iterations on a single research work in the time it takes ChatGPT to finish one, hence enhancing the quality of the research.
Depending on the situation, this speed difference could have a varied effect. Users undoubtedly forgo speed for quality, but this appears to be a crucial distinction that places Grok in a separate league among AI researchers.
But really, how significant is a just minute variation in research?
It won’t matter at all to the majority of people. While AI takes care of your work, go grab a cup of coffee. Grok-3’s speed advantage could mean the difference between meeting or missing your deadline if you’re a professional seeking quick information for a meeting, a journalist with a deadline, or a student finishing a paper at the last minute.
For the rest of us, however, ChatGPT or Gemini are better options if you require specifics and in-depth information about a subject.
Even a notification on your smartphone will be sent by Gemini to inform you that the research is finished.
Observing the Models in Action
One minor distinction between these systems is the degree of transparency they offer regarding their study methodology, which has a direct bearing on how reliable their findings are.
With outstanding insight into its information-gathering process, Gemini is by far the best in this category. As it gathers data, assesses sources, and develops its understanding, you may follow along.
This openness produces a digital audit trail of sorts that contributes to the credibility of its conclusions.
In comparison, ChatGPT functions more like a mystery, with a much more constrained line of reasoning and research methodology.
Users are rarely given any insight into what goes on behind the scenes, frequently forcing them to stare at a blank screen and question whether anything is actually happening.
The system seemed to entirely stall during several tests, and we only discovered it was ended when we opened a new tab and saw that the research was finished ten minutes ago.
Grok-3 adopts a moderate stance on transparency, showing less of its work than Gemini but compensating with useful structural advancements. Its most notable aspect is that, like a strong executive summary, it presents the main conclusions first before delving into specifics.
Grok-3 adopts a moderate stance on transparency, showing less of its work than Gemini but compensating with useful structural advancements. Its most notable aspect is that, like a strong executive summary, it presents the main conclusions first before delving into specifics.
Research Depth: The Aspect of Quality
Research depth is likely the criterion that distinguishes advanced systems from glorified search engines when evaluating AI research tools. Some significant distinctions between these platforms’ approaches to thorough knowledge synthesis were discovered during our testing.
In terms of content rather than approach, ChatGPT provides thorough analysis that may be mistaken for graduate-level research. When examining philosophical issues about the presence of God, it produced an extensive 17,000-word analysis that covered several philosophical stances along with historical background and sophisticated rebuttals.
This thoroughness has a price, too, since important insights are frequently hidden beneath mountains of context due to information overload, forming a kind of maze that users must traverse in order to draw conclusions that can be put into practice.
Gemini adopts a more well-rounded strategy; the report was more than 6,500 words lengthy and much more structured while still being sufficiently thorough.
Although it arranges information with exceptional architectural perfection, including formal citation systems with numbered references, it usually covers the majority of ChatGPT’s content.
Without compromising crucial depth, this structured knowledge hierarchy makes complex material much easier to understand by explicitly separating key ideas from supporting data.
Grok-3 uses a technique that is similar to an executive summary, emphasizing speed over depth. A little more than 1,500 words made up the report.
It consistently addresses the essentials of difficult subjects without delving further into the nuances. This efficiency-first approach produces instant usefulness at the price of thorough comprehension, making it ideal for rapid orientation but maybe inadequate for scholarly applications.
It’s interesting to note that the study that these models spent the most time examining asked, “How many genders are there?”
Ironically, considering xAI’s owner, it took ChatGPT almost 20 minutes, Gemini about 30 minutes, and Grok almost 8 minutes to produce a straightforward response.
By the way, none of them provided us with a real number.
The best option for users will depend totally on their particular knowledge demands; professionals who must balance thoroughness with time limits may find Gemini’s approach ideal, while academic scholars may prefer ChatGPT’s depth despite its verbosity.
In contrast, Grok-3’s efficiency-first model can appeal to people who require rapid insights without thorough context.
Citation Reality Check
The number of sources consulted is prominently shown by all three platforms; yet, our analysis revealed an odd behavior that compromises these metrics.
We found that all three systems routinely count various bits of information from the same source as independent citations when looking at citation practices.
This presents a false picture of the scope of the research.
Practically speaking, this means that when an AI says it has reviewed “20 sources,” it might have just retrieved data from 5 different texts, using 4 paragraphs from each as a single source.
It is challenging to determine how thorough the research is due to this citation inflation, which is a major issue for academic or professional applications where source diversity is important.
Grok cheats in another method. Although a large portion of the links to its sources frequently lead to 404 errors and non-existent pages, it does offer useful and reliable information.
The Conclusion: Various Tools for Various Tasks
It appears that these AI research assistants were designed with somewhat unique use cases in mind. As cliche as it may sound, each will work better for a particular kind of user:
Gemini (8.5/10) provides the most transparent and well-rounded research experience. It’s the best option for serious research because knowledge of the process and source is just as important as the findings. Consider any situation where you need to confirm and possibly defend your sources, such as business plans, historical research, or professional reports.
The most thorough research depth is provided by ChatGPT (8/10), however speed, transparency, and dependability come at a high expense. It works well for exploratory, non-urgent research when thoroughness is more important than quickness and where sporadic system failures won’t disrupt vital activities. It is perfect for scientists, philosophers, academics, and graduate-level researchers.
Grok-3 (7/10) This agent has outstanding information presenting skills and is the speed champion. It’s ideal for situations that require prompt, understandable findings without requiring you to follow the entire research process. As long as they understand that they shouldn’t depend on Grok-3 to delve deeply into the subjects being researched, journalists on deadline, professionals getting ready for upcoming meetings, speedy travel plans, and anyone else who values their time will appreciate Grok-3’s efficiency.
For general research purposes, Gemini currently provides the most comprehensive package. However, the “right” option ultimately relies on your priorities regarding speed, transparency, and thoroughness, and no single platform currently offers the ideal combination of all three qualities.