Automating competitive analysis: watch the market without living in it.

Pick a short list and a short checklist.

Choose three to six competitors and the few things that matter: pricing pages, positioning, new features, hiring pages, and customer reviews. A short list you actually look at beats a long one that nobody reads.

Collect public information only.

Use public websites, announcements, changelogs, job posts, and review sites. Respect each site’s terms and avoid anything private or gated. If you would not be comfortable explaining where the information came from, leave it out.

Set up change alerts.

Many tools can notify you when a page changes, or you can save pages on a schedule and compare them. Have the assistant summarize what changed in plain language and quote the old and new text side by side.

Compare against your own position.

Ask: “Given our stated positioning and these changes, what might matter to our customers? What should we not react to?” The second question is the valuable one. Most competitor moves are not worth a response.

Review monthly, decide, then act.

Schedule a short review. Decide what, if anything, to change, and write down why. Keep the output factual: avoid unsupported claims about competitors in anything you publish.