> Powered by a version of the upcoming OpenAI o3 model that’s optimized for web browsing and data analysis, it leverages reasoning to search, interpret, and analyze massive amounts of text, images, and PDFs on the internet, pivoting as needed in reaction to information it encounters.
If that's what you're referring to, then it doesn't seem that "explicit" to me. For example, how do we know that it doesn't use less thinking than o3-mini? Google's version of deep research uses their "not cutting edge version" 1.5 model, after all. Are you referring to something else?
o3-mini is not really "a version of the o3 model", it is a different model (less parameters). So their language strongly suggests, imo, that Deep Research is powered by a model with the same number of parameters as o3.