Presentation 3: AI Deep Research and Thinking

(for Yate and Sodbury U3A Science and Tech Group 27th June 2025)

This presentation is designed to be very interactive with a live audience, with questions arising and discussed with every slide. Please do ask them!

The Tools: [A] Grok (from X)

groks explaining groks tools

The Tools: [B] Perplexity

perplexity screen

Example 1: Quantity Surveying

Taking Off. Qn. In the UK one job of a Quantity Surveyor is "taking off" which is the process of looking at a planning document for a building including drawings and listing all of the materials and work needed to build it so that a cost estimate can be made. We need a report for our management board explaining to what extent AI tools should be expected to contribute to this within two years from now. This will inform how many trainees we need to take on, given a constant workflow. If we currently take on 5 per year, how many might we need by two years time.

[1.1] Using Grok in 'Think Mode'.

groks answer using thinking

[1.2] Using Grok in 'DeepSearch'.

Grok's report could be cut and pasted so here it is in pdf form, badly formatted as it is quickly done. Grok's pdf report.

groks answer using deepsearch

[1.3] Using Perplexity 'DeepSearch'.

Perplexity went through a long analysis process including writing some Python code that produced a chart projecting workforce needs forward in different scenarios. Eventually it provided a pdf (having said that it could not do that). Here is that report: Perplexity's pdf report

Perplexity dives into writing code for a chart