How do I use AI for competitive research?

How to Use AI (Including ChatGPT) for Competitive Product Benchmarking

Let’s be honest: tracking your competitors’ product changes is a brutal grind. Specs get tweaked. Features quietly disappear. And if you don’t catch it fast, your sales team walks into a deal with yesterday’s talking points.

AI tools—and yes, even ChatGPT—are starting to change that. They’re not replacing product managers or competitive analysts, but they are helping them act faster and smarter. If you’re selling complex products like electric HVAC systems, AI can scan the digital noise and tell you when something shifts—especially when your competitor would rather you didn’t notice.

A Real-World Use Case

Say you’re selling electric HVAC systems. A competitor drops the SEER rating on one of their top-tier models, maybe due to supply chain changes. It’s buried in a spec sheet update or a quiet tweak on their distributor’s site. AI catches the drop before they’ve even updated their brochures. Your sales team adjusts its pitch, highlights your system’s higher efficiency, and wins the deal.

That’s the value. Now let’s talk tools.

1. AI-Powered Web Monitoring: What Are They Saying and Doing?

Tools like Crayon, Kompyte, and Similarweb use AI to track your competitors’ websites, blog updates, pricing changes, ad campaigns, and more—without you having to refresh anything.

Use Case: You’re a B2B software company. One morning, Crayon alerts you that a competitor just launched a new pricing tier. You analyze it and counter with a targeted campaign before they even finish their rollout.

2. Natural Language Processing (NLP): What Are Customers Saying?

Use ChatGPT or tools like ChatterMill to summarize reviews, Reddit threads, forums, and Glassdoor feedback about your competitors.

Use Case: You’re in the manufacturing space and find out via AI summarization that customers are annoyed with your competitor’s delivery delays. That’s your opening to promote your reliability in every outbound email.

3. Ad and Content Tracking: What’s Their Story?

Use AI tools like SEMrush, SpyFu, and Adbeat to dissect your competitors’ paid search, SEO, and ad copy strategies. Then use ChatGPT to summarize themes, angles, and emotional hooks.

Use Case: You’re a services company and notice a competitor hammering “cost efficiency” in every ad. AI reveals they’ve shifted from “premium” positioning. That means something changed—maybe churn is up. Time to reinforce your premium edge.

4. AI for Product Benchmarking

Use Clarifai, Chattermill, or Skuuudle for image recognition, product review analysis, and spec comparison tools powered by AI to dissect product features. GPT can then rank, compare, or even generate SWOT analysis.

Use Case: You sell electric HVAC systems. AI scans product listings and finds your competitor downgraded a key spec—but they buried it. Use that insight to emphasize your superior tech in sales pitches.

5. Predictive Trend Analysis

Feed ChatGPT historical data, public earnings calls, and investor briefings from your competitors. Then prompt it to predict strategic moves—new markets, price hikes, product sunsets.

Use Case: You run a mid-market SaaS. ChatGPT reviews 12 months of call transcripts and earnings commentary. It predicts a shift to vertical SaaS in healthcare. That gives you a six-month lead to own that vertical first.

AI Prompts

Here are AI prompts to accelerate your competitive recon:

• Summarize customer complaints about [competitor] from recent reviews.
  
  
• Compare the pricing pages of [Competitor A] and [Competitor B] and highlight key differences.
  
  
• Analyze the most common keywords and ad copy used by [competitor].
  
  
• Create a SWOT analysis for [competitor] based on public info.
  
  
• Based on their last 3 earnings calls, what trends is [competitor] pursuing?
  
  

Final Thought

AI is ready to help you catch the subtle product changes that shift deals—but only if you use it wisely. Tools like Skuuudle give you automated monitoring. ChatGPT gives you flexible analysis. But neither replaces smart humans with industry context.

Set up your systems to catch what matters, train your teams to use the insights, and stay ahead before your competitors even know they blinked. The real power isn’t just in the data—it’s in how fast you act on it.