Table of Contents
Gemini's new Deep Research is an early example of an AI agent. I think it is something that will radically change how people search. I have found it extremely helpful already. But I do worry that this feature will be bad news for many websites, especially affiliate sites.
This new feature is only available to paid users of Gemini Advanced for the moment. You ask Gemini a question and it creates a research plan for you. Then, it browses the web, finds new info and adds to its plan as it learns.
Let’s say you’re researching which blender to buy. In Gemini Advanced, you can select 1.5 Pro with Deep Research:
Then, ask Gemini to research for you. I asked, "Can you help me decide which blender to buy?"
In this case, Gemini made a plan to look at top sites like Wirecutter and Consumer reports, and find blenders for different uses. Let’s say I’m mostly interested in making smoothies. I can edit my plan.
Once I click “Start research”, Gemini goes off and browses sites like Amazon, the Food Network, other review sites, manufacturer sites and forums to put together a report for me.
It takes a few minutes for this report to populate. You can read it in Gemini, or you can export to a Google doc. Here is the Google doc report it made for me, and here are a few screenshots from the in-Gemini version.
Now, perhaps sites like foodnetwork.com will get clicks and subsequent affiliate sales. I’ve found in my own research so far that I’m not clicking on sites as I get what I need to know from the research and then go to official sites or perhaps Amazon, or stores near me to purchase.
What about monetization?
The obvious question here is what happens when sites like foodnetwork.com and seriouseats.com see a reduction in traffic? What incentive is there for them to keep producing content? Now who knows...perhaps people will still click through and click on affiliate links.
There's currently no link in the research for me to click on and buy a product. I think that will change though. Google said in October that they are testing ads in AI Overviews. I expect that soon, my Deep Research search for a blender will be infused with ads that I will happily click on and purchase from. If true, this makes it even less likely that I'll visit a review site and click on an affiliate link.
Google's CEO Sundar Pichai said something recently that stood out to me. He said that Search will change profoundly in 2025. And also, that Google spends a lot of time thinking about the traffic they send to the ecosystem:
Perhaps, if you are creating review content that truly is valuable Google will pay to licence that content?
I think though that many of the sites that currently produce content primarily for affiliate marketing will find it difficult to maintain revenue as AI answers more of people's questions.
Will Deep Research come to AI Overviews in regular Search?
For now, Deep Research is only available to those with a Gemini Advanced paid subscription. Eventually though I expect this type of research, or at least something close to it could be a part of AI Overviews. In Google’s recent Gemini 2.0 announcement they shared how Deep Research uses “advanced reasoning” and then said that they’ll be bringing “advanced reasoning” to AI Overviews.
I do think that AI Overviews will become more and more useful, with people conversing within the AI Overview and then asking Google to do specific research for them.
I'd recommend giving Deep Research a try. I've also used it for doing competitor research. I'm working with an eCommerce site to vamp up their product description pages. I sent Deep Research out to learn as much as it can about each product and create a report for me on what is important to know and what concerns people have. We're then taking this information, adding some more insight from the vendor themselves, and using Gemini 2.0 to turn it into a helpful product page.
I find myself using Deep Research repeatedly. I’ve created so many reports in the last week - not for testing but for legitimately finding answers.
Here’s a good prompt, “Find me ideas for Christmas gifts for a xx year old boy/girl that I can purchase near me.”
This was originally a story for my paid newsletter, Marie's Notes. It became long enough I decided to make it into an article. Click that link to see a recent example of the paid newsletter, or you can sign up for the free version here: