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Microsoft’s AI chatbot app is on the verge of becoming a Microsoft deep research AI powered by an AI tool in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
This isn’t unconnected with the raft of deep research agents launched recently across various chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok. Reasoning AI models are programmed to power these chatbots, which can think through problems and fact-check themselves. These skills are arguably crucial for conducting in-depth research on a subject.
Microsoft’s flavors are called Researcher and Analyst.
AI researchers merge OpenAI’s deep research model, which powers the company’s own ChatGPT deep research tool, with “advanced orchestration” and “deep search capabilities.” Microsoft contends that Researchers can perform analyses, including developing a go-to-market strategy and creating a quarterly report for a client.
As for Analyst, it’s built on OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model and is “optimized to do advanced data analysis,” Microsoft said. Analyst progresses through problems iteratively, taking steps to refine their “thinking” and provide a detailed answer to queries. As added by Microsoft, analysts can also run the programming language Python to tackle complex data queries. The company maintained that the tool can also expose its “work” for inspection.
The Microsoft deep research AI tools are slightly more unique than the competition based on their access to work data and the World Wide Web. For example, the Researcher tool can tap third-party data connectors to draw on data from AI “agents,” tools, and apps like Confluence, ServiceNow, and Salesforce.
A significant challenge is ensuring tools such as Researcher and Analyst don’t hallucinate or otherwise make things up or, in clear terms, generate fake citations. Models, including o3-mini and deep research, are imperfect; occasionally, they miscite work, draw incorrect conclusions, and pull from dubious public websites to inform their reasoning.
The Microsoft deep research AI is done through a new Frontier program through which Microsoft 365 Copilot customers can gain access to Researcher and Analyst. Those enrolled in Frontier, which will gain experimental Copilot features first going forward, will get Researcher and Analyst starting in April.
Google, Microsoft and others are interested in AI investment; therefore, users should be on the lookout for more innovation from these companies.
