Optimizing AI Thinking Time for Enhanced Efficiency

On this episode of No Priors, Sarah sits down with Isa Fulford, one of the masterminds behind deep research. They unpack how the initiative began, the role of human expert data, and what it takes to build agents with real-world capability and even taste. Isa shares the differences between deep research and OpenAI’s o3 model, the challenges around latency, and how she sees agent capabilities evolving. Plus, OpenAI has announced that deep research is free for all US users starting today.

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Show Notes:

0:00 Deep research’s inception & evolution

6:12 Data creation 

7:20 Reinforcement fine-tuning

9:05 Why human expert data matters

11:23 Failure modes of agents

13:55 The roadmap ahead for Deep Research

18:32 How do agents develop taste? 

19:29 Experience and path to building a broadly capable agent

22:03 Deep research vs. o3

25:55 Latency

27:56 Predictions for agent capabilities