ChatGPT’s Deep Research is the feature that has been turning heads worldwide. Let’s put it to use.

When you submit your topic, the model always asks one clarifying question first to align on intent.

Once you answer, the research starts.

The fine-tuned o3 model thinks for itself and runs the investigation.

That iterative, autonomous research is what makes this feature compelling. It’s like asking a junior analyst to take their time and dig in.

Wait times depend on the question, but typically run 5 to 30 minutes — for me, usually 15 to 20 minutes on average. In return, you get a report that would otherwise take days to write yourself, easily saving over 20 hours of hands-on work.

Today’s question wasn’t difficult and the scope was narrow, so it finished in about 4 minutes. What follows is the raw, unedited output — please read with that in mind.

Zenken Corporation — Business Overview and Recent News

Business and core services

Zenken Corporation (formerly Zenken Honsha) operates with two core pillars: marketing and overseas talent. Founded in 1975, the company started in education, and today it focuses on customer-acquisition support centered on web marketing, plus overseas talent placement and training. It also runs a real estate business through its own buildings, which provides stable revenue.

Web marketing business

Zenken’s flagship is its web marketing business, which supports client companies’ lead generation and recruitment with proprietary digital-marketing methods. The company offers a one-stop solution covering SEO (search engine optimization), content marketing, web advertising, and site production — helping client companies raise their visibility online and convert that visibility into customers. A defining feature is the “niche-top strategy,” which positions clients to become the No. 1 information source within their specific niche by industry or product. For example, the in-house marketing media “Kyakkuru” publishes acquisition know-how and case studies by industry, while also generating leads for client companies through service-PR articles. With this end-to-end capability — content production, SEO, advertising, and PR — Zenken has built a track record across more than 120 industries.

Overseas talent business

The other pillar is the overseas talent business, which sources, trains, and places skilled workers from abroad to address Japan’s domestic labor shortage. Zenken focuses especially on IT engineers and care workers, recruiting from countries such as India and Indonesia. For instance, Zenken set up a local subsidiary, ZENKEN INDIA, in Bengaluru — India’s IT hub — and partners with around 40 engineering universities to find STEM students, while also operating a recruitment platform dedicated to overseas IT talent. In the care-work field, the company has signed an exclusive agreement with an Indonesian sending-organization to build a pipeline for Indonesian care professionals. After securing candidates through these overseas hubs and partnerships, Zenken trains them in Japanese language, business etiquette, and Japanese culture so they’re prepared not just to start a job, but to stay and contribute. Drawing on the language-education know-how built up since the company’s founding, Zenken delivers job-ready Japanese plus cross-cultural training, contributing to long-term retention. Through this business it primarily serves companies in IT and elderly care, and more recently has begun introducing overseas talent (including holders of the “Lodging” specified-skilled-worker visa) to the hotel and accommodation industry.

Other businesses

In addition to the two pillars above, Zenken also runs a real estate business. It owns two buildings within a 5-minute walk of Shinjuku Station — “Zenken Plaza” and “Zenken Plaza II” — which it leases to tenants, generating stable income from a prime location. This real estate segment is positioned as a complement that stabilizes the overall business. In education, Zenken has been divesting prior businesses such as the English-conversation school and the cram-school operations in recent years, concentrating resources on its current core — marketing and overseas talent.

Service strengths and target markets

Each of Zenken’s services has distinct strengths and clearly defined target customers.

Web marketing strengths: A complete value chain from planning and production to acquisition execution, plus a high-margin business model. With in-house SEO directors, content editors, and a writer network, the team delivers content that is both technically rigorous and high-quality, allowing fine-grained customization to each client’s industry, products, and scale. Zenken specializes in niche-targeted strategy, helping mid-sized and small companies become the only-one in their niche. Target customers are companies with strong specialty products or services that struggle with customer acquisition, and companies looking to use the web for efficient employer branding. Coverage spans BtoB and BtoC, with a particular edge in niches that competitors don’t reach.
Overseas talent strengths: Two pillars — “supply capacity” and “training capability.” On the supply side, as noted above, Zenken has built a unique overseas talent network through its India subsidiary, university partnerships, and exclusive agreements with Indonesian sending-organizations. Tie-ups with India’s government-affiliated workforce-development bodies further secure a stable pool of high-quality candidates, allowing Zenken to introduce a wide range of talent — from IT engineers to care staff — to Japanese employers. On the training side, by leveraging decades of language-education know-how, Zenken delivers more than basic Japanese: it covers on-the-job Japanese, business etiquette, and Japanese cultural understanding. The result is a system that supports candidates all the way from placement to settling in and becoming a contributing member of the team. The target market is Japanese companies facing serious labor shortages — primarily in IT, care work, and hospitality — and Zenken provides hire-ready overseas talent solutions for them.

Recent news and developments

Rebranding (October 2023): On October 1, 2023, the company changed its name from “Zenken Honsha Co., Ltd.” to “Zenken Corporation.” This rebrand shifts the message from “Zenken Honsha — IT and language” to “Zenken — marketing and overseas talent,” signaling that the company has pivoted from an education-centric business to one anchored in marketing and overseas talent.
Sale of AI subsidiary and focus on the core (May 2023): In May 2023, Zenken divested its consolidated subsidiary Sciseed Inc., which had been developing AI chatbots. Its COVID-19 vaccine reservation system (an online tool for managing appointment slots) generated strong revenue temporarily, but as that demand cooled and the conversational AI market (chat-based question-answering services such as ChatGPT) became increasingly competitive, the company decided to streamline and concentrate on its growth areas. Source: Logmi Finance.
FY2024 outlook (year ending June 2024): Revenue is expected to dip temporarily due to the Sciseed divestiture, but Zenken is reallocating resources to content marketing (article production that drives lead generation) and overseas talent placement (introducing IT talent) to return to growth. Logmi Finance covers the earnings call in detail.

How was that? The inline citation URLs make it a little hard to read, but in real work it’s tremendously useful.

You can’t strictly control which sources it uses, but giving it the requirements and letting it act on its own — that’s exactly what an “agent” should be. It’s going to be a fun year watching this capability mature.