If you haven’t used ChatGPT’s Deep Research tool yet, get ready to have your hair blown back, and then set on fire.

On Saturday morning, I asked the tool to do some research for an article I wrote on the benefits of private debt for institutional investors. I gave it an earlier draft, then clicked “Send.” In 13 minutes, it cheerily produced a 3,000-word research paper, complete with copious sources, tables, pull quotes, and a full bibliography. It cited only reputable sources like PitchBook, Deloitte, and McKinsey.

I copy-pasted that paper into a Google Doc, downloaded it, and fed it into a custom GPT designed to write articles for the client, complete with their brand guidelines and corporate details. In about two minutes it created a 1,200-word blog post that, for all intents and purposes, appeared to outperform anything a human writer could do without spending two days on craft, and invoicing over $1,000.

But there was one glaring problem.

The research was a joke.

Generative AI isn’t magic. It’s not sentient. (It’ll actually tell you that itself.) And definitely can’t mimic human judgment. But when you know what it does well — and where it stubs its toe — it can be a superhero.

In other words, treat it like a talented human…

Can you really check for AI-generated content?

No. But you can check for bad writing.

When AI hit the scene in 2023, nobody cared whether a blog was written by AI. If it was cheaper and it got the job done, where was the harm?

Then the questions started popping up. Was it ethical? Would it steal bread from the mouths of human writers and their families? Was it plagiarism? Was it accurate? Would Google penalize it…