TOKYO,  (AFP)- US tech giant OpenAI on Monday unveiled a ChatGPT tool called "deep research" ahead of high-level meetings in Tokyo, as China's DeepSeek chatbot heats up competition in the AI field.

Artificial intelligence newcomer DeepSeek has sent Silicon Valley into a frenzy, with some calling its high performance and supposed low cost a wake-up call for US developers.

OpenAI, whose ChatGPT fronted generative AI's emergence into public consciousness in 2022, said its new tool 'accomplishes in tens of minutes what would take a human many hours.'

'You give it a prompt, and ChatGPT will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst,' the company said in a statement.

In a livestreamed video, OpenAI researchers showed how the tool can crunch web search data to help recommend ski equipment for a snow holiday in Japan.
OpenAI chief Sam Altman said that deep research, which paid "Pro" ChatGPT users can access 100 times a month, is 'compute-intensive and slow'.

'But it's the first AI system that can do such a wide variety of complex, valuable tasks,' he wrote on social media platform X.

Altman is in Tokyo to meet Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba later Monday along with Masayoshi Son, head of Japanese tech investment behemoth SoftBank Group.