You ask for competitor research and receive a confident list of market leaders. The report does not explain why those businesses are comparable or where its claims came from.
Brief AI-assisted competitor research around a decision, a defined comparison set and observable public information. Require dated source references and separate inference from fact. A useful research pack should help you ask better questions, not turn uncertain public clues into invented market intelligence.
Photo by Mitya Ivanov on Unsplash.
State the decision first
Are you clarifying service positioning, comparing how offers are described or identifying unanswered customer questions? These are different tasks.
For an illustrative professional-services firm, the decision might be whether its onboarding page explains responsibilities clearly enough. That requires examining relevant service pages, not estimating competitors' revenue or creating a league table.
Define geography only when it changes the comparison. A locally relevant business and a large international platform may serve different clients even when their websites use similar phrases.
Define the comparison set
Name the selection criteria and ask the researcher to explain inclusions. Useful criteria might concern audience, service type and buying situation.
Do not infer that a business is a direct competitor simply because it ranks for a broad phrase. Keep adjacent examples separate if they help with presentation but do not represent the same offer.
Use public, authorised material. Do not request access to restricted content or personal information to make the report appear more complete.
Use an observation card
For each finding, record:
Business and relevant public page.
Date observed.
Exact feature of the offer or explanation being compared.
Evidence supporting the observation.
Interpretation, clearly labelled.
Missing information and the decision it affects.
For example, a public page may state a consultation length. That does not establish how many people book it, whether the service converts well or what clients think of it.
An illustrative positioning question
Suppose several comparable firms describe deliverables but none clearly explains the client's preparation work. That may suggest a useful question for your own service page: what must the client provide before work starts?
It does not prove a market gap or guarantee that publishing the answer will win enquiries. Check the question against actual client conversations and the service you can deliver.
Avoid copying language or reorganising competitors' paragraphs into a new article. The research should inform your understanding while your explanation reflects your own approved offer.
Finish with a decision and remaining uncertainty
Ask for a short synthesis explaining which observations matter to the original question. Keep source links available for verification, especially before making a public comparison.
Recommend a proportionate next step, such as reviewing one page or testing a clearer explanation with relevant readers. If the evidence is weak, say what would be needed rather than filling the report with confident conclusions.
Useful research narrows uncertainty. It does not remove the need for business judgement or supply reliable demand figures merely because a tool can write them.
For related practical guidance, see preparing clear research requirements and checking generated summaries against evidence.
Hili Consulting can help scope public competitor research around a specific business decision. Arrange a free 30-minute consultation and bring one example of the work you want to improve.
