OpenAI’s Deep Research: A Consultant Killer?

Plus, China’s DeepSeek Getting Banned

In partnership with

In today’s newsletter:

  1. 📖 OpenAI’s Deep Research: A Consultant Killer?

  2. 🤖 China’s DeepSeek Getting Banned

  3. 🏫 Newsletter about AI: The Rundown

  4. 🧠 Write Your First Book Quickly with AI

  5. 🎤 One prompt you can use at work today

Read time: 4 minutes

1. OpenAI’s Deep Research: A Consultant Killer?

Open AI recently released Deep Research, a specialized AI agent with advanced reasoning skills that can help you with your work.

It can deliver expert-level research and detailed reports in minutes—tasks that once required teams of consultants.

Here’s the announcement from OpenAI:

Ethan Mollick tried it out with some impressive results. He gave Deep Research a short prompt asking it to examine the academic literature about a topic and to present the results at the graduate level.

It came back with a 13 page report (~3700 words) with multiple citations and references. Mollick, a Wharton Professor, said he would have been happy to see such an output from a “beginning PhD student.”

The ramifications of this are significant, and we could potentially start seeing businesses saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on consulting fees by relying on AI agents such as Deep Research.

Note: OpenAI’s Deep Research is not to be confused with Google’s Deep Research (which is a similar product but apparently a less powerful tool as of this writing) nor should it be confused with the similar-sounding DeepSeek (the Chinese model - see below)

2. China’s DeepSeek Getting Banned

DeepSeek is a powerful AI model that was released by China a little while ago.

It offers advanced reasoning capabilities comparable to top U.S. models (like OpenAI’s ChatGPT) but at a significantly lower cost.

This low-cost, high-performance combination has allowed DeepSeek to quickly gain traction (even surpassing ChatGPT in popularity on the iOS App Store for a little bit).

This unsettled U.S. investors and caused a sharp selloff of US-based tech stocks like Nvidia.

However, U.S. regulators have begun restricting the use of DeepSeek on government devices over national security concerns (including Congress). The primary worry is that DeepSeek stores user data on servers located in China and operates under Chinese government regulations, which could potentially allow sensitive or classified information to be accessed or misused by state actors.

Other non-government businesses have also banned its use, so it sounds like some of the competition pressure on US-based AI companies might have eased off a bit (at least in the short term).

3. Newsletter about AI: The Rundown

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by The Rundown, a newsletter that covers daily updates about AI tools and workflows. More details below.

Start learning AI in 2025

Everyone talks about AI, but no one has the time to learn it. So, we found the easiest way to learn AI in as little time as possible: The Rundown AI.

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses – tailored to your needs.

4. Write Your First Book Quickly with AI

Want to write a nonfiction book but don’t have a lot of time?

I just launched access to the fourth cohort of my course called the 4-Week "Write Your Book on the Side" System

It's about how to write a high-quality, nonfiction book (in less than 4 weeks using AI tools)

The course starts on February 11, 2025 and includes 8 total sessions over 4 weeks

The primary focus of the course is on publishing a business card on steroids.

It will help busy employees and entrepreneurs improve their brand & credibility (i.e. this is not about creating a low-value, low-content, money-focused product).

It's about creating an asset that'll help elevate your status and open up new opportunities for you.

Everything I know about writing and publishing over 20 books & 9 Amazon bestsellers (with over 110,000 downloads), and getting featured in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Bloomberg will be covered. Click here for more details.

5. One Prompt You Can Use at Work Today

Here’s a practical ChatGPT Prompt you can use at work:

We are planning a [event type] on [date], at [location]. Create an announcement to [goal].

For example,

We are planning a team-building event on June 9th, at the local bowling alley. Create an announcement to encourage employees to participate.

If you would like to see more of those prompts, check out my free book called: ChatGPT for Better Business Communication.

You can grab it for free by clicking the button and subscribing to the newsletter 👇️