In the ever-evolving field of product management, staying ahead of the competition means knowing what your rivals are up to—before they know you know. Public documents, GitHub repositories, company blog posts, investor decks, Reddit threads, and X (formerly Twitter) conversations have become gold mines of competitive intelligence (CI). But manually browsing this ocean of content is inefficient, even impossible. That’s where AI-first research assistants come in.
TL;DR
If you’re a product manager looking to gain a competitive edge, AI-first research assistants can automate the discovery of useful intel from public sources like Reddit, X, and product changelogs. These intelligent tools go beyond simple scraping—they analyze tone, detect sentiment, and summarize actionable insights. In this article, we spotlight six top AI-powered research assistants that are transforming how PMs gather competitive intelligence. Get ready to upgrade your product research game.
1. Glean: Enterprise Intelligence for PMs Who Hate Searching
Best for: Internal search across company knowledge + light competitive watch
Glean is primarily known for enabling smarter internal searches, but it also doubles as a handy tool for PMs keeping an eye on market trends. If your org connects Glean with Slack, Google Drive, and Notion, you can set it up to monitor key competitor-related updates shared internally or bookmarked by your team. While not a traditional CI tool, Glean’s AI helps identify patterns and alerts you to emerging trends sourced from public links shared inside your org’s ecosystem.
Key Features:
- Semantic search across internal databases
- Supports AI-flagged trend discovery
- Chrome extension to pull context quickly while browsing public web pages
Ideal Use Case: Spotting competitor moves through internal chatter and shared links without having to dig manually.
2. Feedly’s Leo: Competitive Intel with AI-Fueled Precision
Best for: Tracking competitor trends, new product announcements, and keyword-specific topics
Feedly has transformed from a simple RSS reader into a machine-powered research hub. Its AI assistant, Leo, allows product managers to subscribe to feeds filtered by keywords, competitors’ blog domains, or thematic topics like “product updates” and “feature launches.” Leo’s ability to declutter and prioritize only relevant intel saves hours of time for PMs under pressure.
Key Features:
- AI-based filtering and prioritization of news feeds
- Customizable Topic Feeds: Track only what matters
- Direct integration with tools like Slack and Notion
Ideal Use Case: Monitoring your biggest competitor’s blog, changelog, and coverage in tech media for any sign of strategic direction shifts.
3. Fathom: Meeting Intelligence That Doubles as Competitive Radar
Best for: Turning sales calls and customer interviews into CI treasure troves
While not a traditional CI tool, Fathom is an AI-driven Zoom transcription and highlight assistant that can effortlessly extract competitor mentions during product discovery sessions, sales calls, or customer interviews. PMs use Fathom to tag moments where users compare tools, discuss rival features, or complain about competitor pain points.
Key Features:
- Automatic call recording, transcription, and note generation
- Smart highlight tagging – label mentions of specific rivals
- Searchable archive of past calls for recurring feedback patterns
Ideal Use Case: Building a living competitive matrix from your own customer calls without needing to lift a pen.
4. IngestAI: Your AI Agent for Digging Through Forums and GitHub
Best for: Technical CI via developer forums, Reddit, and community engagement
If you’re analyzing developer-focused products or SaaS tools with active technical communities, IngestAI lets you ingest entire web pages, PDFs, forums, and GitHub issues into a Q&A-based chatbot. IngestAI breaks down massive data collections into digestible answers you can interact with. PMs use it specifically to pull insights from Reddit product threads or GitHub issue discussions that reveal customer complaints, requested features, and sentiment toward competing tools.
Key Features:
- Plug in URLs, PDFs, or forum threads and query them through a chat UI
- Supports Markdown and web scraping for deep analysis
- API and Zapier integrations to automate data ingestion
Ideal Use Case: Extracting competitor pain points and buzz from developer communities without wading through threads one-by-one.
5. Browse AI: Automate Competitor Website Monitoring
Best for: Tracking pricing pages, changelogs, or feature updates at scale
Browse AI creates task bots that automatically scrape and monitor public websites, recording changes for you. PMs often deploy it to monitor competitor pricing pages, roadmap sections, and release notes. The tool sends alerts when something changes, enabling your team to stay proactive rather than reactive. With no code setup, even non-technical PMs can use it effectively.
Key Features:
- Visual bot builder for non-coders
- Monitors web pages and triggers email or Slack updates
- Works well with Airtable or Sheets for structured comparison tables
Ideal Use Case: Watching how often competitors change their pricing tiers or which features they are emphasizing in their public changelogs.
6. Bearly AI: All-In-One Assistant With Research + Summarization Powers
Best for: Fast document comprehension and summarizing competitive PDFs & product pages
Bearly AI bills itself as a “second brain” for knowledge workers—and it lives up to the claim for PMs. Bearly enables instant AI summarization of web pages, PDFs, and even long email threads. When product managers need quick takeaways from a competitor’s whitepaper, terms of service, or investor deck, Bearly delivers in seconds. It’s browser-first and optimized for speed.
Key Features:
- Instant document summarization
- Browser extension for one-click simplification of webpages
- Offline mode for summarizing local PDF files
Ideal Use Case: Rapid competitor document digestion when deadlines are tight and attention is split.
Bonus Tip: Combine Tools for Maximum Competitive Visibility
Using these AI-first research assistants in isolation can be powerful—but combining them can be game-changing. For instance, you can use Feedly and Leo to monitor public domain activity, Fathom to scrape data from user conversations, then Bearly AI to summarize longer documents. Suddenly, you’re acting more like an intelligence agency than a product team.
The Bottom Line: AI is Revolutionizing Product Research
Staying on top of competitors no longer requires combing hundreds of websites manually. These AI-first research assistants empower Product Managers to shift from reactive to proactive, from scattered research to organized intelligence. While no tool can replace human intuition and strategy, the right AI stack can massively augment your reach, focus, and speed.
So choose your assistant—or better yet, your AI squad—and sharpen your competitive edge.