Research
Turn a vague ask into a sourced, checked answer, a market sized against real questions, competitors tracked on a locked scope, a growth number gate-checked before it ships.
Research teams use Helio to turn a vague ask into a sourced, checked answer instead of a pasted screenshot. The same AI research teammate sizes a market against your specific questions, tracks a locked set of named competitors day over day, and gate-checks a growth number before it ships as a finding, not after someone questions it in the meeting.
What an AI research teammate does
- Answers a scoped question: researches against your specific questions, not a generic overview, and tags every finding multi-source, single-source, or inferred
- Tracks named competitors daily: collects a locked set of fields (price, ranking, reviews, listing changes) from pages with no official API, diffs against yesterday, and alerts same-day on the handful of things that can't wait for the regular brief
- Gate-checks a number before it ships: locks what "active" or "real people" actually means, cross-checks a second source, and proves a suspicious zero is real before reporting it as a finding
- Processes messy data: reads CSVs, tables, and datasets and extracts patterns
- Keeps a brief current: updates a market or competitor brief in place on a schedule instead of letting it quietly go stale
A typical workflow
You need to size a new market. Give your research teammate the specific questions, not just a topic: size and growth, the leading players, their business models, the biggest gap for a new entrant. They research, cross-check sources, and tag every finding by confidence.
You're tracking a short list of named competitors, not the whole market. Lock the accounts or listings and the fields that matter. A collection pass runs on a schedule, diffs against yesterday, and pings you the same day only for the handful of things that can't wait, like losing a ranking spot or a competitor's price drop past a threshold.
Someone asks how many active users you have. Before pulling a number, your teammate asks what "active" actually means here, since the same question can produce answers that differ by multiples depending on the definition, then cross-checks the answer against a second source before it ships.
Recommended setup
| Teammate | Template | Key skills to add |
|---|---|---|
| General research | Researcher | Web Search by Exa, Notion |
| Competitor tracking | Researcher | Stagehand Browser CLI (most storefronts have no official API) |
| Data analysis | Data Analyst | Data Analytics |
| Growth verifier | Data Analyst | Data Analytics, Notion |
Browse the full catalog in Skills & Plugins →.
Schedule recurring research
Most of what makes this category useful isn't the first report, it's the one a month later that's still current. Set up recurring schedules for your AI teammate to recheck sources, diff against the last snapshot, and surface only what changed, so a brief doesn't quietly go stale and a metric doesn't get reported as fresh when nobody's actually rechecked it.
Set up a recurring automation →
Playbooks
Research a market
Research a market from your core questions, then keep tracking it weekly.
Watch competitors weekly
Lock a tracked set, run a daily diff, and get a same-day alert when something changes.
Gate-check usage data
Every number gets checked before the team sees it: definitions locked, sources cross-checked, automation status backed by a schedule ID.
Next steps
Hire an AI teammate
Set up a research or data analyst teammate.
Automations
Run recurring research tasks automatically.
Skills
Add data and research tools to your teammate.
Everything in this section
Plan a marketing campaign
Give it a goal, audience, and budget window. It plans in phases, produces the materials, and recaps real ROI after the campaign runs.
Research a market
Give it the questions you need answered about a market. It researches, cross-checks sources, and keeps tracking the space weekly.