ai-research-analyst
Produces executive-level research — market sizing, competitor mapping, trend analysis, and strategic intelligence — grounded in cited sources with the confidence in each claim made explicit. Use this to analyze a market or industry, map competitors, evaluate a market-entry or build-versus-buy decision, produce a research brief, or assemble evidence for a decision. Also use when comparing options that need a structured, evidence-based verdict rather than an opinion.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cbrock84/headcount /tmp/ai-research-analyst && cp -r /tmp/ai-research-analyst/plugins/executive/skills/ai-research-analyst ~/.claude/skills/ai-research-analystSKILL.md
# AI research analyst Research is only useful if the reader can tell what is established, what is inferred, and what is guessed. Blurring those three is the characteristic failure and it makes the whole report untrustworthy. ## Start from the decision Name the decision the research serves and what would change it. Research with no decision attached expands without limit and answers nothing. If the answer would not change the action, say so and stop. ## Sourcing discipline - **Cite specifically** — the source, its date, and what it actually says. A claim with no source is an opinion, and should be labeled as one rather than dressed as a finding. - **Prefer primary** — filings, regulator data, official statistics, and company disclosures over articles summarizing them. Each layer of summary adds error. - **Date everything.** Market data ages fast, and a two-year-old figure presented as current is the most common way research misleads. - **Note who benefits.** Vendor-published market sizes and analyst reports commissioned by participants are directionally useful and systematically inflated. - **Say when you do not know.** An honest gap is more useful than a confident estimate, because the reader can go and fill it. Never invent a statistic, a source, or a quote. If a number cannot be found, report that it cannot be found — a fabricated figure that survives into a decision is the worst outcome this skill can produce. ## Structure 1. **The question**, and the decision it serves. 2. **Answer first** — the finding, in three sentences, before any evidence. 3. **Evidence**, grouped by claim, each with its source and date. 4. **What we could not establish**, explicitly. 5. **Implications** — what this means for the decision, not a restatement. 6. **Confidence**, per major claim: established, inferred, or estimated. ## Analyzing competitors Map on what matters to the buyer, not on feature counts. For each: who they serve, what they charge, how they win deals, where they are genuinely strong, and what they cannot do without changing their model. The last one is where opportunity is. Separate what a competitor **claims** from what customers **report**. Review sites, support forums, and job postings often say more than a website does — hiring patterns in particular reveal roadmap. ## Comparing options Score against criteria stated and weighted **before** the analysis. Weighting afterward produces the answer you already preferred. Show the working, and name the criterion that would flip the result if weighted differently. ## Never - Present a range as a point estimate. - Aggregate sources of different quality into one number without saying so. - Let a compelling narrative substitute for evidence — the tidiest story is often the least supported.
Concentrates marketing and sales effort on a named set of accounts rather than on volume — qualifying whether the model fits your economics at all, building the account list and the buying group inside each, tiering effort against account value, coordinating so the account experiences one campaign rather than several, and measuring account progression instead of leads. Use this to decide whether to run an account-based program, build one, or work out why an existing one produces activity and no pipeline.
Designs orchestrator-and-subagent hierarchies for a repository — splitting agents by exclusive write surface, pairing every producer with an independent auditor, and enforcing the split with a script that runs in CI. Use this whenever the user wants to set up, expand, audit, or fix a multi-agent or subagent structure for a codebase; asks how to divide work between agents; wants agent charters, roles, or a surface map written; or is hitting agents that collide on the same files, review their own work, or drift from their remit. Also use when sizing a roster or deciding whether a new agent is justified.
Governs models and AI systems in production — intended use, evaluation, monitoring, human oversight, documentation, and the decision to deploy or retire. Use this before deploying a model or AI feature, when defining evaluation criteria, when a model's behavior has drifted, when assessing AI risk or regulatory exposure, or when deciding whether an AI system is fit for a consequential decision.
Optimizes for AI assistants and AI-generated answers — being retrievable, being cited, and being represented accurately when a model answers on your behalf. Use this when traffic is shifting from links to AI answers, when a brand is misrepresented or absent in AI responses, when planning content for retrieval rather than ranking, or when deciding how AI search changes an existing SEO program.
Improves visibility and conversion in the App Store and Google Play — metadata, keywords, screenshots, ratings, and the listing experience that turns an impression into an install. Use this to audit or optimize an app listing, plan a launch listing, diagnose poor install conversion, or improve store search visibility.
Protects and restores data — backup coverage and scope, retention, immutability against ransomware, and proving restores actually work. Use this to design a backup regime, verify restores, plan retention, protect backups from ransomware, or recover from data loss.
Runs the planning cycle — annual budget, rolling forecast, consolidation of business unit inputs, and the variance analysis that explains actuals against plan. Use this to build or challenge a budget, run a forecast cycle, consolidate departmental submissions, explain why results diverged from plan, or improve forecast accuracy.
Finds the single constraint currently limiting a business's growth and the highest-leverage moves against it, rather than producing a list of everything that could be improved. Use this when growth has stalled or slowed, when deciding where to spend limited time or budget, when revenue rises but profit does not, when prioritizing growth initiatives, or when a business feels busy without compounding.