mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

DeepWideSearch: Benchmarking Depth and Width in Agentic Information Seeking

arXiv 2510.20168 ↗First posted 23 Oct 2025cs.CLcited by 20

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

  1. 2025WideSearch: Benchmarking Agentic Broad Info-Seeking11 Aug
  2. 2025A Survey of LLM-based Deep Search Agents: Paradigm, Optimization, Evaluation, and Challenges3 Aug
  3. 2025Cognitive Kernel-Pro: A Framework for Deep Research Agents and Agent Foundation Models Training1 Aug
  4. 2025SPAR: Scholar Paper Retrieval with LLM-based Agents for Enhanced Academic Search21 Jul
  5. 2025WebSailor: Navigating Super-human Reasoning for Web Agent3 Jul
  6. 2025DeepResearch Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Deep Research Agents13 Jun
  7. 2025WebEvolver: Enhancing Web Agent Self-Improvement with Coevolving World Model23 Apr
  8. 2025PaSa: An LLM Agent for Comprehensive Academic Paper Search17 Jan

Other references · 15

  1. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
  2. 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,146
  3. 2018HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answeringcited by 3,686
  4. 2017TriviaQA: A Large Scale Distantly Supervised Challenge Dataset for Reading Comprehensioncited by 2,895
  5. 2023GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistantscited by 1,084
  6. 2025BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agentscited by 616
  7. 2025ZeroSearch: Incentivize the Search Capability of LLMs without Searchingcited by 203
  8. 2025A Survey of Self-Evolving Agents: What, When, How, and Where to Evolve on the Path to Artificial Super Intelligencecited by 155
  9. 2025BrowseComp-ZH: Benchmarking Web Browsing Ability of Large Language Models in Chinesecited by 139
  10. 2025OWL: Optimized Workforce Learning for General Multi-Agent Assistance in Real-World Task Automationcited by 129
  11. 2025WebShaper: Agentically Data Synthesizing via Information-Seeking Formalizationcited by 118
  12. 2025Multi-Agent Design: Optimizing Agents with Better Prompts and Topologiescited by 106
3 more
  1. 2025RLVMR: Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Meta-Reasoning Rewards for Robust Long-Horizon Agentscited by 56
  2. 2025DeepShop: A Benchmark for Deep Research Shopping Agentscited by 42
  3. 2025AgentRM: Enhancing Agent Generalization with Reward Modelingcited by 25

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 19.

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  1. 2026A Survey of Agentic Reasoning for Large Language Models: Towards Recursively Self-Improving and Collective Agentscited by 47
  2. 2026MMDeepResearch-Bench: A Benchmark for Multimodal Deep Research Agentscited by 21
  3. 2026Marco DeepResearch: Unlocking Efficient Deep Research Agents via Verification-Centric Designcited by 12
  4. 2026Time to REFLECT: Can We Trust LLM Judges for Evidence-based Research Agents?cited by 10
  5. 2026WideSeek-R1: Exploring Width Scaling for Broad Information Seeking via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
  6. 2025LocalSearchBench: Benchmarking Agentic Search in Real-World Local Life Servicescited by 7
  7. 2026DR-Arena: an Automated Evaluation Framework for Deep Research Agentscited by 6
  8. 2026GISA: A Benchmark for General Information-Seeking Assistantcited by 6
  9. 2026A-MapReduce: Executing Wide Search via Agentic MapReducecited by 5
  10. 2026Table-as-Search: Formulate Long-Horizon Agentic Information Seeking as Table Completioncited by 5
  11. 2026Towards Verifiable Multimodal Deep Research: A Multi-Agent Harness for Interleaved Report Generationcited by 3
  12. 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearchcited by 1
8 more
  1. 2026When Search Agents Should Ask: DiscoBench for Clarification-Aware Deep Searchcited by 1
  2. 2026WebSwarm: Recursive Multi-Agent Orchestration for Deep-and-Wide Web Searchcited by 1
  3. 2026WANDR: A Benchmark for Wide and Deep Researchcited by 1
  4. 2026SGR-Bench: Benchmarking Search Agents on State-Gated Retrievalcited by 0
  5. 2026CRISP: Critical Step Perception for Training Efficient Deep Search Agentscited by 0
  6. 2026CHIME: Credit-Aware Hierarchical Memory Evolution for Long-Horizon Agentic Planningcited by 0
  7. 2026Mr.LHDR: A Benchmark for Multimodal Real-World Long-Horizon Deep Research Agentscited by 0
  8. 2026Efficiently Linking Unstructured Data for Multi-step Reasoningcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026DeepSearchQA: Bridging the Comprehensiveness Gap for Deep Research Agents
  2. 2025From Web Search towards Agentic Deep Research: Incentivizing Search with Reasoning Agents
  3. 2025Fathom-DeepResearch: Unlocking Long Horizon Information Retrieval and Synthesis for SLMs
  4. 2026SeekerGym: A Benchmark for Reliable Information Seeking
  5. 2026EigentSearch-Q+: Enhancing Deep Research Agents with Structured Reasoning Tools
  6. 2026DailyReport: An Open-ended Benchmark for Evaluating Search Agents on Daily Search Tasks
  7. 2025Lost in the Maze: Overcoming Context Limitations in Long-Horizon Agentic Search
  8. 2026Agentic Search in the Wild: Intents and Trajectory Dynamics from 14M+ Real Search Requests