Research apps Early access
A Research app fills tables you lend it with data it finds on the web. You write a brief, it runs on the schedule you set, adds and edits rows with a source for each value, and asks you a question instead of guessing when it is unsure.
Use it for data that lives in public sources and changes over time: competitors' plants and capacities, prices on suppliers' sites, a list of every company in a market.
Research apps are open to selected organizations, and they need web lookups. See Apps for what they cost and who can use them.
Set up a Research app
Open Apps in the sidebar, click New app and choose Research. Setup has four steps.
1. Start
- Start from a design: its tables and brief carry over. Pick an applied Design app; the tables it made are lent to write, and its description becomes the starting brief.
- Provide tables: pick them from any model.
2. Setup
Name the app, then:
- Tables. Each table is lent to Read or Write. The app can only add, soft-delete or edit rows on the tables lent to write, and at least one must be. It reads the others to look things up. You can lend a table to read if you could share it, and to write if you could share it with the right to share on. A graph shows the lent tables and what they link to.
- Brief. What to find, where to look, and what counts as a source. Write it against the tables: the agent fills their columns, so the column descriptions matter as much as the brief.
- Model. The AI model the agent uses.
- Total cost limit. What the app may spend over its whole life, setup and every run, AI and web lookups together. When it is spent, the app pauses.
Click Continue.
3. Clarifications
Before the first run, the agent reads the tables and the brief, runs a few queries, and asks the questions that would change how it fills the tables. Each question shows what the agent saw, two to four options with a one-line fact each, and the agent's pick. For each one you can:
- pick an option,
- choose Something else and say it in your own words,
- or Leave it to the agent.
Click Send answers. The agent may ask a few more rounds, then stops. Your answers become part of the setup: every run reads them, and you can change one later from Clarifications.
4. Interval and limits
- When it runs: Once (right after you start it), Daily, Weekly on the days you pick, or Monthly on the 1st, at a time in your time zone.
- Each run stops after a number of minutes (up to 120) or a cost, whichever comes first. The step shows how many runs fit in the app's total.
Click Start research. The app's page opens, and the first run starts.
While it runs
The app's page shows its runs, their activity, and what each one cost. A run reads the tables and its notes, searches the web, and writes rows as it goes, citing the source for each value. A value no source gives stays empty: the agent never writes a guess.
| You want to | Do this |
|---|---|
| Run it now instead of waiting | Run now |
| Pick up after a pause | Resume |
| Run a finished app again | Run again |
| Tell the next run something | Write it in Note for the next run |
| Stop it for good | Delete app. The tables stay where they are, with every row it added. |
Every run checkpoints the tables it writes before it starts, so you can always go back to how they were. See Versions and releases.
Questions during a run
A run may still meet a decision the setup didn't settle: two names that may be one company, a figure two sources disagree on. It files a question and carries on with the rest. What happens next follows the policy you set on the Clarifications tab:
- Auto-pick: the agent picks an answer itself and continues. Auto-picked answers are marked, and you can change them later.
- Wait for me: the agent leaves the question open, and holds the rows it touches, until you answer.
A pick that would be costly to undo, such as removing rows, always waits for a person. Confirm all picks answers every open question with the agent's pick at once. No question has a deadline.
What a Research app won't do
- Change a schema. It fills rows and never adds, renames or retypes a column. If the tables need another column, change them (for example with the Design app) and the next run reads it.
- Touch tables you didn't lend it, or write to a table lent to read.
- Finish on its own. When runs stop finding anything new, it asks whether the brief is covered and pauses until you answer.
- Spend past its limits. A run stops at its minutes or its cost, and the app pauses when its total cost limit, a key's monthly limit or your own monthly limit is reached.