Deep Search and Advanced Reasoning: The AI Features You Need to Know

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to improve at a mind-boggling speed. It’s no longer just about simple question-and-answer stuff—that’s preschool-level, guys.

AI is now tackling more complex problem-solving and information gathering. Two key features to talk about here are advanced reasoning and deep search, both of which Grok 3 now includes.

Let’s get into what these features are, how they compare to rival AI models, and why they matter to regular people like you and me.

Advanced Reasoning: Thinking Like a Human

Advanced reasoning refers to an AI’s ability to go beyond simply retrieving information. It involves understanding context, figuring things out based on clues or evidence, and putting together different pieces of information to solve problems or answer tough questions.

Grok, for example, uses advanced reasoning designed to handle difficult tasks by breaking them down into smaller parts and checking its work before giving answers.

I saw a demo of this when Grok 2 and Grok 3 were asked to list dog breeds whose names end with ‘i’. Grok 2 got it wrong, including some names that didn’t actually end in ‘i’.

Grok 3, using advanced reasoning, went through the problem and showed its reasoning as it did. It worked through a list, “thinking” about whether each entry met the criteria, and in the end, it produced a correct list.

This helps Grok handle tricky questions better. Users can choose between two thinking modes: “Think” for normal tasks and “Big Brain” for harder problems.

Early reviews show that Grok 3 is better at reasoning than older versions and other current models. I don’t know how much AI benchmarks can be relied on, but apparently, Grok has a bit of a lead there too.

A Summary of How Advanced Reasoning Works

• Contextual understanding: AI models with advanced reasoning can grasp the nuances of language, including idioms, sarcasm, and implicit meanings. (Not all humans understand sarcasm, as some comments on certain articles show, but AI is rapidly improving on this.)
• Logical inference: They can draw conclusions based on the information provided, even if it’s not explicitly stated.
• Knowledge integration: They can combine information from various sources to form a comprehensive understanding.

Grok vs. Rivals

Many AI models have reasoning abilities, but some are more advanced than others.

Some models might excel at specific tasks, like answering trivia questions, while others can handle more abstract problems or complex decision-making.

What I find funny is that ChatGPT’s reasoning feature tells you that by clicking it, you are asking the AI model to “Think before responding”—which implies it won’t think otherwise.

Deep Search

DeepSearch takes information retrieval to the varsity level. It makes finding information much more intelligent. Instead of just matching words, it understands what you’re looking for and finds important details that traditional searches might miss.

Grok 3’s DeepSearch feature scans the internet and Musk’s social network, X, to provide up-to-date information.

The Grok team believes this will save users hundreds of hours of Google time. It essentially does the Google search for you and lays it all out on a platter.

How DeepSearch Works

• It dives deeper into web sources, retrieving more comprehensive and up-to-date information.
• Unlike standard AI models that generate responses based on past training data, DeepSearch can fetch fresh, real-world insights from live internet sources.
• It integrates social media posts (X posts) into its search results, which I guess would give it an advantage in tracking trends and real-time discussions.

How It Compares to Other AI Models

ChatGPT and Gemini rely primarily on their knowledge cutoff (unless browsing is enabled) and don’t deeply integrate real-time social media content into responses.

So yeah, some AI models are limited to searching within their own knowledge base, while others can access and process information from the entire web.

Why You Should Care

It’s a no-brainer that telling your AI to “Think before responding” would have benefits.

On Advanced Reasoning, You Get:

• More accurate AI responses: Advanced reasoning helps AI handle complex questions with deeper logic, reducing incorrect or shallow answers.
• Better problem-solving: Whether troubleshooting tech issues, planning finances, or analyzing data, it provides more thoughtful and contextual responses.
• Smarter discussions: AI can better understand nuances, making it more useful for debating ideas, brainstorming, and learning difficult topics.
• Handles multi-step queries: Instead of giving surface-level answers, it can break down complicated problems and guide users through solutions step by step.

Then, DeepSearch Would Give You the Following Advantages:

• Faster, more relevant answers: Instead of manually scrolling through Google search results or X posts, DeepSearch finds and summarizes the most relevant insights.
• Cuts through misinformation & SEO spam: By pulling directly from a variety of sources, it may reduce the risk of SEO-manipulated content distorting search results. You may have noticed that the quality of Google Search results seems to be falling because some people have found ways to game the system and make their websites rank high even when they are not useful (SEO manipulation). DeepSearch could help with that.
• Staying updated on fast-moving topics: DeepSearch can be especially useful for tracking breaking news, stock market trends, tech launches, and political events.