# Research agent

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/research-agent

> A research agent is an LLM-driven agent specialized for multi-source synthesis — searches, reads, summarizes, compares, cites — packaged either as a product feature ([[deep-research-mode]]) or as a custom agent in n8n / Mastra / LangGraph / Pipedream.

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A research agent is an LLM-driven agent specialized for multi-source synthesis — searches, reads, summarizes, compares, cites — packaged either as a product feature ([[deep-research-mode]]) or as a custom agent in n8n / Mastra / LangGraph / Pipedream.

Research agents differ from chat assistants in three ways: longer time-budget (minutes vs seconds), multi-source synthesis (10-50 pages vs 1-3), and structured-report output (sections + citations vs single answer). Production patterns: (1) consumer products embed Deep Research as a button (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude), (2) B2B teams build custom research agents on top of frontier APIs + a search tool ([[web-retrieval-tool]]) for domain-specific workflows (M&A diligence, competitive intel, regulatory monitoring), (3) open-source frameworks (GPT Researcher, OpenDeepResearch) ship as starting points. The bar is quality + citation honesty; speed is secondary.

## When to use

- Domain-specific multi-source synthesis where chat is too shallow.
- Regulated workflows where citations + evidence trails matter.

## Common mistakes

- Skipping per-source quality filtering — agent eats SEO-spam citations.
- Not capturing the trace — hard to debug when the agent reaches a wrong conclusion.

## Related terms

- [deep-research-mode](https://promtable.com/glossary/deep-research-mode)
- [search-grounded-generation](https://promtable.com/glossary/search-grounded-generation)
- [agent-loop](https://promtable.com/glossary/agent-loop)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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Original page: https://promtable.com/glossary/research-agent
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