DeepWideSearch: Benchmarking Depth and Width in Agentic Information Seeking
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Web, search, and research agents
Abstract (arXiv)
Current search agents fundamentally lack the ability to simultaneously perform textitdeep reasoning over multi-hop retrieval and textitwide-scale information collection-a critical deficiency for real-world applications like comprehensive market analysis and business development. To bridge this gap, we introduce DeepWideSearch, the first benchmark explicitly designed to evaluate agents to integrate depth and width in information seeking. In DeepWideSearch, agents must process a large volume of data, each requiring deep reasoning over multi-hop retrieval paths. Specifically, we propose two methods to converse established datasets, resulting in a curated collection of 220 questions spanning 15 diverse domains. Extensive experiments demonstrate that even state-of-the-art agents achieve only 2.39% average success rate on DeepWideSearch, highlighting the substantial challenge of integrating depth and width search in information-seeking tasks. Furthermore, our error analysis reveals four failure modes: lack of reflection, overreliance on internal knowledge, insufficient retrieval, and context overflow-exposing key limitations in current agent architectures. We publicly release DeepWideSearch to catalyze future research on more capable and robust information-seeking agents.
Key facts. Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Web, search, and research agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 23 of its 31 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Oct 2025.
Builds on
23 of 31 references.
Closest ancestors · 8
Same direction, newest first
- 2025WideSearch: Benchmarking Agentic Broad Info-Seeking11 Aug
- 2025A Survey of LLM-based Deep Search Agents: Paradigm, Optimization, Evaluation, and Challenges3 Aug
- 2025Cognitive Kernel-Pro: A Framework for Deep Research Agents and Agent Foundation Models Training1 Aug
- 2025SPAR: Scholar Paper Retrieval with LLM-based Agents for Enhanced Academic Search21 Jul
- 2025WebSailor: Navigating Super-human Reasoning for Web Agent3 Jul
- 2025DeepResearch Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Deep Research Agents13 Jun
- 2025WebEvolver: Enhancing Web Agent Self-Improvement with Coevolving World Model23 Apr
- 2025PaSa: An LLM Agent for Comprehensive Academic Paper Search17 Jan
Other references · 15
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,146
- 2018HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answeringcited by 3,686
- 2017TriviaQA: A Large Scale Distantly Supervised Challenge Dataset for Reading Comprehensioncited by 2,895
- 2023GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistantscited by 1,084
- 2025BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agentscited by 616
- 2025ZeroSearch: Incentivize the Search Capability of LLMs without Searchingcited by 203
- 2025A Survey of Self-Evolving Agents: What, When, How, and Where to Evolve on the Path to Artificial Super Intelligencecited by 155
- 2025BrowseComp-ZH: Benchmarking Web Browsing Ability of Large Language Models in Chinesecited by 139
- 2025OWL: Optimized Workforce Learning for General Multi-Agent Assistance in Real-World Task Automationcited by 129
- 2025WebShaper: Agentically Data Synthesizing via Information-Seeking Formalizationcited by 118
- 2025Multi-Agent Design: Optimizing Agents with Better Prompts and Topologiescited by 106
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 19.
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- 2026A Survey of Agentic Reasoning for Large Language Models: Towards Recursively Self-Improving and Collective Agentscited by 47
- 2026MMDeepResearch-Bench: A Benchmark for Multimodal Deep Research Agentscited by 21
- 2026Marco DeepResearch: Unlocking Efficient Deep Research Agents via Verification-Centric Designcited by 12
- 2026Time to REFLECT: Can We Trust LLM Judges for Evidence-based Research Agents?cited by 10
- 2026WideSeek-R1: Exploring Width Scaling for Broad Information Seeking via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
- 2025LocalSearchBench: Benchmarking Agentic Search in Real-World Local Life Servicescited by 7
- 2026DR-Arena: an Automated Evaluation Framework for Deep Research Agentscited by 6
- 2026GISA: A Benchmark for General Information-Seeking Assistantcited by 6
- 2026A-MapReduce: Executing Wide Search via Agentic MapReducecited by 5
- 2026Table-as-Search: Formulate Long-Horizon Agentic Information Seeking as Table Completioncited by 5
- 2026Towards Verifiable Multimodal Deep Research: A Multi-Agent Harness for Interleaved Report Generationcited by 3
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearchcited by 1
8 more
- 2026When Search Agents Should Ask: DiscoBench for Clarification-Aware Deep Searchcited by 1
- 2026WebSwarm: Recursive Multi-Agent Orchestration for Deep-and-Wide Web Searchcited by 1
- 2026WANDR: A Benchmark for Wide and Deep Researchcited by 1
- 2026SGR-Bench: Benchmarking Search Agents on State-Gated Retrievalcited by 0
- 2026CRISP: Critical Step Perception for Training Efficient Deep Search Agentscited by 0
- 2026CHIME: Credit-Aware Hierarchical Memory Evolution for Long-Horizon Agentic Planningcited by 0
- 2026Mr.LHDR: A Benchmark for Multimodal Real-World Long-Horizon Deep Research Agentscited by 0
- 2026Efficiently Linking Unstructured Data for Multi-step Reasoningcited by 0
- 2026Efficiently Linking Unstructured Data for Multi-step Reasoning16 Sep 2026
- 2026Mr.LHDR: A Benchmark for Multimodal Real-World Long-Horizon Deep Research Agents10 Sep 2026
- 2026CHIME: Credit-Aware Hierarchical Memory Evolution for Long-Horizon Agentic Planning2 Sep 2026
- 2026WANDR: A Benchmark for Wide and Deep Research14 Aug 2026
- 2026CRISP: Critical Step Perception for Training Efficient Deep Search Agents3 Aug 2026
- 2026WebSwarm: Recursive Multi-Agent Orchestration for Deep-and-Wide Web Search9 Jul 2026
- 2026When Search Agents Should Ask: DiscoBench for Clarification-Aware Deep Search26 Jun 2026
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearch2 Jun 2026
- 2026Towards Verifiable Multimodal Deep Research: A Multi-Agent Harness for Interleaved Report Generation28 May 2026
- 2026SGR-Bench: Benchmarking Search Agents on State-Gated Retrieval21 May 2026
- 2026Time to REFLECT: Can We Trust LLM Judges for Evidence-based Research Agents?18 May 2026
- 2026Marco DeepResearch: Unlocking Efficient Deep Research Agents via Verification-Centric Design30 Mar 2026
8 more
- 2026GISA: A Benchmark for General Information-Seeking Assistant9 Feb 2026
- 2026Table-as-Search: Formulate Long-Horizon Agentic Information Seeking as Table Completion6 Feb 2026
- 2026WideSeek-R1: Exploring Width Scaling for Broad Information Seeking via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning4 Feb 2026
- 2026A-MapReduce: Executing Wide Search via Agentic MapReduce1 Feb 2026
- 2026A Survey of Agentic Reasoning for Large Language Models: Towards Recursively Self-Improving and Collective Agents18 Jan 2026
- 2026MMDeepResearch-Bench: A Benchmark for Multimodal Deep Research Agents18 Jan 2026
- 2026DR-Arena: an Automated Evaluation Framework for Deep Research Agents15 Jan 2026
- 2025LocalSearchBench: Benchmarking Agentic Search in Real-World Local Life Services8 Dec 2025
- 2026MMDeepResearch-Bench: A Benchmark for Multimodal Deep Research Agentscited by 21
- 2026Marco DeepResearch: Unlocking Efficient Deep Research Agents via Verification-Centric Designcited by 12
- 2026Time to REFLECT: Can We Trust LLM Judges for Evidence-based Research Agents?cited by 10
- 2026WideSeek-R1: Exploring Width Scaling for Broad Information Seeking via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
- 2026DR-Arena: an Automated Evaluation Framework for Deep Research Agentscited by 6
- 2026A-MapReduce: Executing Wide Search via Agentic MapReducecited by 5
- 2026Table-as-Search: Formulate Long-Horizon Agentic Information Seeking as Table Completioncited by 5
- 2026Towards Verifiable Multimodal Deep Research: A Multi-Agent Harness for Interleaved Report Generationcited by 3
- 2026When Search Agents Should Ask: DiscoBench for Clarification-Aware Deep Searchcited by 1
- 2026WebSwarm: Recursive Multi-Agent Orchestration for Deep-and-Wide Web Searchcited by 1
- 2026SGR-Bench: Benchmarking Search Agents on State-Gated Retrievalcited by 0
- 2026CRISP: Critical Step Perception for Training Efficient Deep Search Agentscited by 0
12 most cited of 14 All 14 (JSON)
- 2026Mr.LHDR: A Benchmark for Multimodal Real-World Long-Horizon Deep Research Agents10 Sep 2026
- 2026CHIME: Credit-Aware Hierarchical Memory Evolution for Long-Horizon Agentic Planning2 Sep 2026
- 2026CRISP: Critical Step Perception for Training Efficient Deep Search Agents3 Aug 2026
- 2026WebSwarm: Recursive Multi-Agent Orchestration for Deep-and-Wide Web Search9 Jul 2026
- 2026When Search Agents Should Ask: DiscoBench for Clarification-Aware Deep Search26 Jun 2026
- 2026Towards Verifiable Multimodal Deep Research: A Multi-Agent Harness for Interleaved Report Generation28 May 2026
- 2026SGR-Bench: Benchmarking Search Agents on State-Gated Retrieval21 May 2026
- 2026Time to REFLECT: Can We Trust LLM Judges for Evidence-based Research Agents?18 May 2026
- 2026Marco DeepResearch: Unlocking Efficient Deep Research Agents via Verification-Centric Design30 Mar 2026
- 2026Table-as-Search: Formulate Long-Horizon Agentic Information Seeking as Table Completion6 Feb 2026
- 2026WideSeek-R1: Exploring Width Scaling for Broad Information Seeking via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning4 Feb 2026
- 2026A-MapReduce: Executing Wide Search via Agentic MapReduce1 Feb 2026
12 newest of 14 All 14 (JSON)
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearchcited by 1
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearch2 Jun 2026
- 2026GISA: A Benchmark for General Information-Seeking Assistantcited by 6
- 2026WANDR: A Benchmark for Wide and Deep Researchcited by 1
- 2026WANDR: A Benchmark for Wide and Deep Research14 Aug 2026
- 2026GISA: A Benchmark for General Information-Seeking Assistant9 Feb 2026
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