Same company. Same prompt. Four AI research tools. Only one found the plaintiff investigations, the contract stepdown, and the General Counsel departure.
In March 2026, we ran the same research prompt through four AI deep-research tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Deep Vantage. The subject was Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLAB), a $2 billion merchant photomask manufacturer with operations across five countries.
PLAB is a useful test case because the interesting risks don't live on the income statement. They live in JV exhibit filings, 8-K appointment notices, legal newswires, and supply agreement clauses. A tool that only reads earnings releases and analyst notes will produce a clean report that misses the things that actually change the thesis.
Each tool received the same prompt with no custom instructions, system prompts, or proprietary data. All four reports were generated within the same week.
Ratings across six dimensions. Each tool evaluated on a four-point scale.
| Dimension | ChatGPT | Claude | Gemini | Deep Vantage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Depth | 2/4 | 3/4 | 3/4 | 4/4 |
| Accuracy | 2/4 | 3/4 | 1/4 | 4/4 |
| Risk Coverage | 1/4 | 3/4 | 3/4 | 4/4 |
| Competitive Intel | 1/4 | 3/4 | 3/4 | 4/4 |
| Governance & Legal | 0/4 | 2/4 | 1/4 | 4/4 |
| Actionability | 1/4 | 3/4 | 2/4 | 4/4 |
Gemini's accuracy rating reflects an internal contradiction: the report claims 63% merchant market share in prose but presents 25-31% in its own comparison table, without reconciliation.
Every finding below is sourced from SEC filings, legal newswires, JV exhibits, proxy statements, and industry data. All were publicly available. None appeared in the ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini reports.
The cleanest entry point for someone encountering PLAB for the first time. It covers the business model, recent financials, industry positioning, and a balanced catalysts-and-risks section in a concise, well-organized format. The quarterly financial table is useful.
Where it falls short: the report doesn't surface anything a moderately informed investor wouldn't already know. Risk coverage is limited to boilerplate disclosures (cyclicality, FX, geopolitics) without specificity. No governance analysis, no legal monitoring, no contract-level intelligence. The sourcing is light, drawing primarily from earnings releases and market data aggregators. It's a summary, not research.
The best ratio of insight to length across all four reports. In roughly six pages, Claude surfaces the JV cash constraint ($459M held in joint ventures), the CTO departure, the insider selling pattern (25 sells, zero purchases over six months), and Tekscend's IBM 2nm R&D agreement, a competitive detail none of the other reports include at that specificity.
The narrative framing is strong. The opening positions PLAB as "the quiet giant behind every chip" and sustains a coherent bull-and-bear tension throughout. The balance sheet section correctly notes the repatriation complexity of JV-held cash.
Where it falls short: it doesn't read contract exhibits, legal newswires, or proxy statements. The governance coverage mentions the CEO transition and CTO departure but doesn't connect them to the GC separation, the role consolidations, or the plaintiff investigations. The competitive section is good but doesn't model contractual volume migration. It's excellent journalism, but it stops one layer above where thesis-changing findings live.
The longest prose report at 22 pages and the deepest on technology and macroeconomics. The EUV lithography section (covering multi-patterning physics, High-NA anamorphic masks, and blank construction) is the most technically detailed across all four reports. The IEEPA tariff ruling coverage (the February 2026 Supreme Court decision striking down executive tariff authority) is a genuine macro insight that none of the other tools surface.
The competitive landscape table with market share ranges by competitor is the most granular of any report. Institutional ownership is broken out by holder with share counts. The CHIPS Act analysis is substantive.
Where it falls short: internal consistency. The report claims Photronics commands "up to 63% of the overall merchant photomask market" in one section but presents 25-31% in its own comparison table, an unreconciled contradiction that undermines credibility. The prose is heavily inflated ("virtually impregnable," "seismic shock," "absolutely dominates"), which makes it difficult to distinguish confident analysis from rhetorical momentum. At 22 pages, extraction of actionable findings requires significant reader effort. Governance and legal coverage is minimal.
The most comprehensive report across every dimension evaluated. Structured across eight discrete analytical sections (company profile, financials, news and media intelligence, leadership and governance, competitive landscape, legal and litigation, regulatory and compliance, industry and market position) with 886 sources cited and 1,693 discrete findings.
The report surfaces material that would change how an institutional investor models the position. The JV cash decomposition ($637M headline vs. $178M parent-available) reframes the entire balance sheet narrative. The governance section connects four executive changes and two plaintiff investigations into a single risk vector. The competitive section documents contractual volume migration mechanics from JV exhibit filings. The legal section maps plaintiff solicitations, severance terms, and evidentiary gaps. Each section ends with a specific "Critical Risk" callout and an "Actionable Implication," concrete next steps rather than general observations.
Where it falls short: it's the most demanding report to read. At 33 pages, it assumes a professional audience that will use it as a working document rather than a briefing. The density is a feature for institutional use but a barrier for quick orientation. Some sections could benefit from tighter prioritization of findings.
All four reports were generated within the same week in March 2026 using each tool's default deep-research mode. The prompt was identical across all four: a request for comprehensive research on Photronics, Inc. (PLAB) covering business model, financials, competitive landscape, risks, valuation, and catalysts. No custom system prompts, uploaded documents, or proprietary data sources were used. The evaluation was conducted by comparing all four reports against each other and cross-referencing claims against primary sources (SEC EDGAR filings, press releases, legal newswires, and industry databases).
Most AI research tools search the web, summarize what they find, and stop.
Deep Vantage reads SEC exhibit filings, JV operating agreements, supply contract clauses, proxy compensation tables, legal newswires, Form 4 insider filings, and equipment OEM disclosures. It connects findings across these sources to surface the risks, obligations, and structural dynamics that live below the surface of an earnings call.
The difference isn't access to better data. It's a research methodology built for the layer where investment theses actually change.
Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLAB). Four reports. Download all four, upload them to any AI, and ask which one delivers the most actionable intelligence.
Upload all four PDFs to Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini and paste the prompt above.