> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.usehindsight.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Competitor Monitoring

> Build a systematic competitive monitoring program using AI Agent recipes and workflows

Competitive landscapes move fast. New pricing pages, product announcements, G2 reviews, hiring signals — by the time someone notices, it's already in the next deal cycle.

Hindsight's AI Agent gives you a way to monitor competitors systematically. Not a news digest. A research agent you configure, pointed at exactly the sources you care about, running on a schedule and pushing findings to your team.

***

## How It Works

The AI Agent has a set of tools it can use to research competitors from the web in real time:

* **Web Search** — live search for news, product updates, announcements, and competitive signals
* **Scrape URL** — pulls and analyzes the full content of a specific page (pricing pages, docs, changelogs, blog posts)
* **Map URL** *(experimental)* — discovers and indexes subpages from a root URL, useful for finding everything relevant on a competitor's site
* **Browse Tool** *(experimental)* — full browser access for sources that require it, like LinkedIn

These tools let the agent go beyond keyword matching. It reads pages, extracts signals, and synthesizes findings — the same way a researcher would, just automated and on cadence.

You can invoke these tools directly in a prompt, or let the agent decide which ones to use based on your instructions.

***

## The Default Recipe

When you set up competitor monitoring, Hindsight creates a default recipe as a starting point. It runs a general web search for recent activity on your tracked competitors.

The default is intentionally generic. It works, but it might not find the signals that matter most to your team, or for a specific competitor.

**The intent is for you to customize it.**

Remix the recipe and tell the agent exactly where to look. Examples:

* Point it at a competitor's changelog URL to track product releases
* Give it a G2 search query to surface new reviews
* Direct it to a competitor's hiring page to catch team expansion signals
* Set it to scrape a pricing page weekly so you catch changes before your reps do

The more specific your instructions, the more useful the output. A recipe that says "research Competitor X" will return noise. A recipe that says "scrape competitor-x.com/changelog and summarize new features added this month" will return signal.

***

## Remixing a Recipe

Once you find an approach that returns useful findings, save it.

In the Recipe library, hit **Remix** on any recipe to create your own version. Give it a name, edit the prompt, and save it as a reusable starting point.

Build one recipe per competitor, or one per signal type (e.g., "pricing changes," "product releases," "hiring signals"). Remix the same base recipe for each competitor by swapping in a variable for the competitor name — so the structure stays consistent and only the target changes.

**To create or remix a recipe:**

1. Go to [Chat](https://app.usehindsight.com/chat) in Hindsight
2. Click **Browse Recipes**
3. Find a relevant starting recipe and click **Remix**, or click **Create Recipe** to start fresh
4. Edit the prompt, add variables if needed, and hit **Run** to test
5. Save when you're happy with the output

***

## Running on a Cadence with Workflows

A recipe you run once is useful. A recipe that runs every Monday at 8am and posts findings to Slack is a competitive monitoring program.

Use [Workflows](https://app.usehindsight.com/workflows) to automate your recipes:

* **Schedule recurring runs** — daily, weekly, or on a custom cadence
* **Deliver to Slack** — push summaries to a channel like `#competitive-intel` or DM a specific person
* **Save to your intel library** — automatically update competitor profiles in [Intel](https://app.usehindsight.com/intel) when new information is found
* **Connect to external tools** — use Zapier to route outputs to your CRM or docs

This is how you keep battlecards current without a person owning it manually. The workflow runs, finds something new, and either surfaces it to your team or updates the record directly.

***

## Why This Approach Works

Most competitive monitoring tools give you a firehose: keyword alerts, news feeds, review notifications. You still have to read everything and decide what matters.

Hindsight's AI Agent is different in a few ways:

**It reads, not just crawls.** The Scrape URL and Browse tools extract and analyze content, not just check if a page changed. You get a summary of what's new, not a raw diff.

**You control the sources.** Generic web search is a starting point. The real value is pointing the agent at the exact pages you care about: a competitor's pricing page, their docs changelog, their LinkedIn jobs board. You get the signal, not the noise.

**It connects to your deal data.** Once new intel is saved to your library, the AI assistant can reference it when answering rep questions mid-deal. Competitive monitoring feeds directly into competitive enablement.

**It's flexible.** One team might want a weekly Slack digest of all competitor activity. Another might want per-competitor recipes running on different schedules with different sources. Recipes and Workflows support both.

***

## Recommended Setup

| Competitor            | Sources to Monitor            | Frequency | Destination                |
| --------------------- | ----------------------------- | --------- | -------------------------- |
| Primary competitor    | Pricing page, changelog, G2   | Weekly    | `#competitive-intel` Slack |
| Secondary competitors | Homepage, blog, hiring page   | Bi-weekly | Intel library              |
| All                   | Web search for news and press | Weekly    | Slack digest               |

Start with one recipe for your top competitor. Get the output right. Remix it for others. Add Workflows once the recipe is dialed in.

***

*Related: [Setting Up Your Knowledge Base](/guides/knowledge-base-setup) | [Recipes Guide](/guides/recipes) | [AI Agent Tools](/guides/prompting)*
