Apify MCP Server vs DeepSearch

search_people

Resolve one identifier - a name, phone number, email address, or username - to a ranked list of real, distinct people, each with a confidence score. Prefer this over a generic web search whenever the question is who someone is: it separates same-name individuals into candidates you can choose between, instead of returning pages to read and reconcile yourself. Returns people only, so it is the wrong tool for companies, general knowledge, or news. Public sources only - never private accounts or breach data.

build_dossier

Assemble one person's entire public footprint into a single sourced profile: identity, contact details, social accounts unified across platforms, work history, education, relatives, locations, and web mentions - every claim linked to the page it came from. Prefer this over reading search results yourself when you need the whole picture of one person rather than a single fact; it does the cross-platform correlation that a web search leaves to you. Pass a name plus the headline or username from search_people so the right individual is profiled. Repeat profiles are served from a shared cache: free and instant. Public sources only - never private accounts or breach data.

ask_about_person

Answer one specific question about a person, grounded in their public footprint, and suggest follow-ups. Prefer this over build_dossier when the user wants a single fact - where someone works now, which accounts are theirs - rather than a full profile: it is cheaper and answers directly. Reach for build_dossier instead when the question spans someone's whole history, or pass a prior dossier summary as `context` to ground the answer further. Public sources only - never private accounts or breach data.