Competitive Intel Digest

Build an agent that researches competitor activity across the web every week, compiles findings into a structured analysis, and highlights pricing changes, product launches, and hiring trends.

The Business Problem

Your strategy team monitors 5-8 competitors, but the process is inconsistent. Someone reads an article here, catches a LinkedIn post there, and the findings live in scattered Slack messages. By the time a quarterly review rolls around, nobody has a complete picture.

You need a systematic, repeatable process that delivers a structured digest every week without anyone manually Googling competitor names.

What You'll Build

Component	Details
Agent	Market Analyst
Workflow	4-step competitive research workflow
Guidelines	3 rules for focus areas, sourcing, and positioning
Connections	Brave Search
Output	Competitive digest artifact

Step 1: Set Up Connections

This workflow only needs one connection because it relies on web search and page fetching.

Brave Search

1. Go to Connections in the sidebar and click Add Connection.
2. Select Brave Search.
3. Enter your Brave Search API key.
4. Click Connect and verify the status.

TIP

Brave Search is the most cost-effective option for web research workflows. You get generous API limits and results aren't filtered through ad-ranking algorithms.

Step 2: Create the Agent

Go to Agents and click New Agent.

Field	Value
Name	Market Analyst
Description	Researches competitor activity and compiles weekly competitive intelligence digests
Preferred Model	Gemini 2.5 Flash
Risk Tolerance	High

For the agent's Role Instructions, use:

You are a market analyst specializing in competitive intelligence. You write structured, analytical reports backed by cited sources. You focus on facts and observable signals rather than speculation. When drawing comparisons, always reference specific data points.

INFO

Gemini 2.5 Flash is chosen here because competitive research involves processing many search results and web pages. Flash is fast and cost-effective for high-volume reading and summarization. The analysis quality is excellent for research tasks.

Why high risk tolerance? This workflow only reads and analyzes public information. There's no sensitive data or customer-facing output, so the agent can work quickly without extra safety checks.

Step 3: Add Guidelines

Create three guidelines and assign them to the Market Analyst agent.

Guideline 1: Focus Areas

Field	Value
Name	Focus on pricing changes, product launches, and hiring trends
Content	Prioritize three categories of competitive signals: (1) Pricing changes — new plans, price increases/decreases, packaging changes, free tier modifications. (2) Product launches — new features, new products, major updates, beta programs. (3) Hiring trends — key executive hires, layoffs, job posting volumes by department, new office locations. If a competitor has no activity in a category, say so explicitly.
Activation	Always active

Guideline 2: Source Citations

Field	Value
Name	Cite all sources with URLs
Content	Every factual claim must include a source URL. Format citations as inline links. If a finding comes from multiple sources, include all of them. Never make claims without a source. If you cannot verify a rumor or speculation, label it clearly as "Unverified" and include the original source.
Activation	Always active

Guideline 3: Competitive Positioning

Field	Value
Name	Compare to our position on each finding
Content	For every significant competitor finding, add a "Our Position" note comparing how we stack up. Be honest and specific. Examples: "We launched a similar feature in Q4 — adoption data not yet available" or "Our pricing is 20% higher for the equivalent tier" or "We do not currently offer this capability."
Activation	Always active

Step 4: Build the Workflow

Go to Workflows and click New Workflow.

Field	Value
Name	Competitive Intel Digest
Description	Weekly competitive intelligence research and analysis
Default Agent	Market Analyst
Schedule	Every Friday at 2:00 PM

Step 1: Search for Competitor News

Field	Value
Type	Action
Instructions	Search for recent news and updates about each competitor: [Competitor A], [Competitor B], [Competitor C], [Competitor D], [Competitor E]. For each competitor, search for: (1) "[Company] pricing" OR "[Company] pricing change", (2) "[Company] product launch" OR "[Company] new feature", (3) "[Company] hiring" OR "[Company] layoffs". Compile a list of the most relevant URLs found.
Auto-Approve	Yes

Step 2: Fetch and Read Key Pages

Field	Value
Type	Action
Instructions	From the URLs found in Step 1, fetch and read the top 3-5 most relevant pages per competitor. Focus on primary sources (company blogs, press releases, official announcements) over secondary coverage. Extract the key facts from each page.
Auto-Approve	Yes

Step 3: Analyze and Compare

Field	Value
Type	Action
Instructions	Analyze all findings and organize them by competitor. For each competitor, categorize signals into Pricing, Product, and Hiring. Score the overall competitive threat level as Low / Medium / High based on the volume and significance of activity. Identify the single most important competitive development of the week.
Auto-Approve	Yes

Step 4: Create Competitive Digest

Field	Value
Type	Action
Instructions	Create a structured competitive digest artifact with these sections: (1) Executive Summary — the top 3 things leadership should know, (2) Per-Competitor Breakdown — organized by company, with subsections for Pricing, Product, and Hiring, each including citations and our positioning, (3) Threat Assessment — table ranking competitors by activity level this week, (4) Recommended Actions — 2-3 things our team should consider in response.
Auto-Approve	Yes

TIP

All steps have Auto-Approve enabled because this is a research-only workflow with no external actions (no posting, no sending messages, no modifying data). The worst case is a report you don't use.

Step 5: Run and Review

The workflow runs automatically every Friday at 2 PM. You can also trigger it manually anytime:

1. Open the workflow and click Run.
2. Watch progress on the Jobs page (/jobs). All four steps auto-approve.
3. When complete, find the digest in Artifacts.

Expected Output

Artifact: "Competitive Intel Digest — Week of [Date]"

A structured report like this:

Executive Summary

1. Competitor A launched a free tier targeting SMBs — directly competes with our Starter plan
2. Competitor C raised enterprise pricing by 15%, creating an opportunity for us
3. Competitor B posted 12 new engineering roles, suggesting a major product push

Competitor A — ThreatLevel: High

Pricing Launched a free tier with 1,000 API calls/month (source). Previously their lowest plan was $49/mo. Our Position: Our Starter plan is $29/mo with 5,000 calls. We don't have a free tier.

Product No significant launches this week.

Hiring Posted 3 sales roles in EMEA (source), signaling European expansion. Our Position: We have no current EMEA presence.

...

Threat Assessment

Competitor	Activity Level	Key Signal
Competitor A	High	Free tier launch
Competitor C	Medium	Price increase
Competitor B	Medium	Hiring surge
Competitor D	Low	No significant activity
Competitor E	Low	Blog post only

Recommended Actions

1. Evaluate whether to introduce a free tier in response to Competitor A (owner: Product)
2. Target Competitor C's enterprise customers with competitive pricing offers (owner: Sales)
3. Monitor Competitor B's engineering postings for hints about upcoming features (owner: Strategy)

Cost Considerations

This workflow uses Gemini 2.5 Flash, which makes it one of the most cost-effective workflows you can run.

Step	Estimated Tokens	Approximate Cost
Step 1: Search	~1,000	Minimal
Step 2: Fetch pages	~5,000	Minimal
Step 3: Analysis	~3,000	Minimal
Step 4: Digest	~4,000	Minimal

A typical weekly run costs a fraction of what a Claude-based workflow would cost. Check the run's cost view on the Jobs page for exact numbers.

INFO

If you want higher-quality analysis in the final digest, you can assign Step 4 to a different agent that uses Claude, while keeping Steps 1-3 on Gemini Flash. Create a second agent called "Strategy Writer" with Claude as the preferred model, then override the agent for Step 4 only.

Customization Ideas

• Add more competitors. Update Step 1's instructions with additional company names.
• Change the focus areas. Edit the "Focus Areas" guideline to track different signals (e.g., partnerships, regulatory filings, patent activity).
• Increase frequency. Change the schedule to daily for fast-moving markets.
• Add Slack distribution. Add a Step 5 that posts the executive summary to a Slack channel (requires a Slack connection).

Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
Search returns irrelevant results	Make competitor names more specific in the instructions. Add "Inc." or the product name to disambiguate.
Pages fail to fetch	Some sites block automated access. The agent will note which pages it couldn't read. Consider those sources manually.
Digest is too long	Add a word limit to the Step 4 instructions (e.g., "Keep the total digest under 2,000 words").
Analysis seems shallow	Switch the Analysis step (Step 3) to Claude for deeper reasoning, or add more specific prompts about what to look for.