I think we have very different definitions of the word 'research' then.
I'd say that what you're saying is 'synthesis'. The 'Intro/Discussion' sections of a journal article.
For me, 'research' means the work of going through and getting all the data in the first place. Like, going out and collecting dino bones in the hot sun, measuring all the soil samples, etc. - that is research. For me, asking these models to go collate some webpages, I mean, you spend the first weeks of a summer undergrad's time to go do this kid of thing to get them used to the file systems and spruce up their organization skills, see where they are at. Writing the paper up, that's part of research sure, but not the hard part that really matters.
Agreed—we're working with different definitions of "research". The deep research products from OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Perplexity seem to be more aligned with my definition of research if that helps you gain more utility from them.
It's excellent at producing short literature reviews on open access papers and data. It has no sense of judgment, trusting most sources unless instructed otherwise.
Gemini's Deep Research is very good at discriminating between sources though, in my experience (haven't tried Claude or Perplexity). It finds really obscure but very relevant documents that don't even show up in Google Search for the same queries. It also discounts results that are otherwise irrelevant or very low-value from the final report. But again, it is just a starting point as the generated report is too short, and I make sure to check all the references it gives once again. But that's where I find its value.
I'd say that what you're saying is 'synthesis'. The 'Intro/Discussion' sections of a journal article.
For me, 'research' means the work of going through and getting all the data in the first place. Like, going out and collecting dino bones in the hot sun, measuring all the soil samples, etc. - that is research. For me, asking these models to go collate some webpages, I mean, you spend the first weeks of a summer undergrad's time to go do this kid of thing to get them used to the file systems and spruce up their organization skills, see where they are at. Writing the paper up, that's part of research sure, but not the hard part that really matters.