01 the business
Specialist packaging supplier
55 staff, selling online and through distributors
Everyone agrees competitors should be watched, but nobody owns it. Price changes come to light when a customer mentions them on a sales call. The last competitor deep-dive is a year-old slide deck.
02 before
The problem
Everyone agrees they should keep an eye on competitors, but nobody owns it. Price changes and new products get noticed when a customer mentions them on a sales call. The occasional deep-dive goes into a slide deck and is stale a month later.
- Competitor moves are heard second-hand, often weeks late.
- Sales relies on outdated talking points.
- Nobody knows which search terms competitors are winning.
03 the build
What the AI does
- Step 1: Checks the competitor websites, pricing pages and product listings you name for changes since the last visit.
- Step 2: Follows their blogs, press releases, job ads and public ad libraries for launches and new campaigns.
- Step 3: Reads new public reviews of competitors and groups the praise and complaints by theme.
- Step 4: Uses Semrush or Ahrefs data to show which search terms they are gaining or losing on.
- Step 5: Writes a weekly digest with links to every source and posts it to Slack or a Notion page.
paused: waiting for a person to approve
How it was put together
- Listed eight competitors with their pricing pages, product listings, blogs and job ads.
- Checked each source weekly for changes and stored a dated copy of what changed.
- Grouped new public reviews of competitors by theme, such as delivery times or quality.
- Wrote a weekly digest with a link to every source, posted to Slack and Notion.
04 human in the loop
Where a person stays in charge
The agent only reads public sources. A named owner in marketing reviews the digest before it is shared with sales or leadership, and decides whether any finding needs a response.
- Only public sources are read, and each site's terms and robots rules are respected.
- Every claim in the digest links to its source.
- A named marketing owner reviews the digest before it goes to sales or leadership.
05 rollout
From kickoff to live in 2–3 weeks
- Week 1Agree competitors, sources and what counts as a change worth reporting.
- Week 2Run the first digests for the marketing owner only.
- Week 3Share weekly with sales and leadership.
06 after
What changes
The team hears about competitor moves within days, from a single trusted source. Sales gets current talking points, and pricing or product decisions start from facts rather than rumour.
Assume eight competitors with five sources each, checked by hand at 6 minutes per source every week.
8 × 5 × 6 minutes = 240 minutes, or 4 hours a week of checking that usually does not happen. The digest takes about 15 minutes to read.
What to measure
- Days between a competitor change and the team hearing about it.
- Digest items that led to an action, such as a price review.
- Sales feedback on talking points.
- Search terms gained or lost against named competitors.
07 evidence
What the research says
About 75% of generative AI's potential value sits in four areas: customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and R&D.
In a field experiment with 758 BCG consultants, those using GPT-4 on tasks within its abilities finished 12.2% more tasks, 25.1% faster and at over 40% higher quality, but did worse on a task outside its abilities.
08 lessons
Mistakes to avoid
- Tracking too many competitors. Start with the five who show up in deals.
- Reporting noise. A typo fix on a pricing page is not news.
- Using it to copy. Use it to decide, not to imitate.
09 questions
Common questions
- Is this legal?
- Reading public web pages is generally fine, but respect each site's terms. The agent does not log in or collect personal data.
- Can it watch marketplaces like Amazon?
- It can track public product listings and prices on marketplaces you name.