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Hermes Research Agent — Autonomous Market Intelligence & Competitive Research

The Hermes Research Agent is your autonomous market intelligence engine. It monitors competitors, industry trends, academic literature, patent filings, and news sources to deliver actionable insights — not raw data dumps. Use it for competitive landscaping, market sizing, technology trend tracking, literature reviews, and strategic intelligence gathering.

Unlike one-off web searches, the Research Agent maintains persistent monitoring threads that build knowledge graphs connecting companies, technologies, and market trends so insights compound over time.

Overview

The Research Agent replaces manual competitive research. Instead of periodically checking competitor websites, scanning news feeds, and manually compiling briefs, your team receives scheduled digests and alerts — competitor changes detected within hours, weekly market intelligence briefs with cited sources, and literature reviews with confidence ratings.

Capability What It Does
Competitive intel Competitor domain monitoring (SEO, traffic, backlinks), product change detection
Market intelligence Industry trend analysis, market sizing, TAM/SAM/SOM, funding and M&A tracking
Literature review Academic paper discovery, summarization, citation graphing, research gap identification
News monitoring Topic-based news aggregation, sentiment analysis, emerging narrative detection
Patent tracking Patent filing alerts by company or technology area, IP landscape mapping

See also: Agent Library Overview · Marketing Agent · Legal Agent

How It Works

  1. Connect research tools — Ahrefs, Semrush, GA4, YouTube, Notion via CorpusIQ connectors
  2. Define competitors and topics — Store competitor list, tracked keywords, and research areas in canonical facts
  3. Load the skills — Competitive intel, market intelligence, literature review, news monitor, patent tracking
  4. Schedule the crons — 12-hour competitor checks, 4-hour news scans, weekly briefs, monthly patent sweeps
  5. Receive synthesized briefs — Structured reports with cited sources, confidence levels, and recommended actions

Key Features

  • Competitor monitoring every 12 hours — detects website changes, pricing updates, hiring signals
  • Industry news aggregation every 4 hours with sentiment analysis and relevance filtering
  • Weekly market intelligence briefs — market moves, competitor activity, emerging trends
  • Monthly patent landscape updates tracking filings by company and technology area
  • Mid-week literature reviews sweeping academic databases for new papers in your research areas
  • Persistent knowledge graphs connecting companies, technologies, and market trends

Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek V3 (with web search) — strong synthesis across diverse sources. Claude's long context window is particularly valuable for literature reviews. Use Claude Haiku for ongoing monitoring and alert classification.

MCP Connectors Needed

Connector Purpose
Ahrefs / Semrush Competitor SEO, traffic, backlink, keyword monitoring
Google Search Console Own-site SEO for competitive context
GA4 Own-site traffic for market share context
YouTube Competitor video content, product demos, conference talks
Notion / Airtable Research repository, competitive matrices, brief archives
Slack Research alerts, brief distribution
Email Newsletter monitoring, alert digests

Sample Cron Schedule

# Competitor website monitoring every 12 hours
0 8,20 * * * hermes skill competitive-intel --competitors config --detect-changes

# Industry news scan every 4 hours during weekdays
0 8,12,16 * * 1-5 hermes skill news-monitor --topics config --format digest

# Weekly market intelligence brief every Monday at 9:00 AM
0 9 * * 1 hermes skill market-intelligence --period last_week --output brief

# Monthly patent landscape update on the 5th
0 8 5 * * hermes skill patent-tracking --companies config --since last_month

# Literature review sweep every Wednesday at 2:00 PM
0 14 * * 3 hermes skill literature-review --topics config --new-since 7d

Quick-Start Command

hermes agent create research \
  --model claude-sonnet-4 \
  --skills competitive-intel,market-intelligence,literature-review,news-monitor,patent-tracking,brief-generator \
  --connectors ahrefs,semrush,ga4,search_console,youtube,notion,slack \
  --profile research \
  --description "Market intelligence and competitive research agent"

Configuration Notes

  • Define competitor list, tracked topics, and research areas in canonical facts
  • The agent builds persistent monitoring threads — the longer it runs, the better its detection
  • Configure source prioritization — which sources matter most for your industry
  • Set brief format preferences: executive summary first, detailed analysis, source appendix
  • Define citation standards for all research outputs

Extending

  • Add sentiment-tracking monitoring brand and competitor sentiment across social and news
  • Integrate with LinkedIn Sales Navigator for B2B intelligence
  • Add technology-radar tracking emerging tech trends
  • Build a due-diligence skill for company and market research supporting investment decisions

FAQ

What does the Hermes Research Agent do?

The Hermes Research Agent autonomously monitors competitors, tracks industry trends, aggregates news, reviews academic literature, and tracks patent filings — synthesizing findings into structured briefs with cited sources, confidence levels, and recommended actions.

How does competitor monitoring work?

The agent checks competitor websites every 12 hours for changes — new pages, pricing updates, job postings signaling strategic moves, SEO changes, and content additions. Changes are posted as a digest with context about what changed and why it matters.

Unlike a one-off web search, the Research Agent maintains persistent monitoring threads. It builds knowledge graphs connecting companies, technologies, and market trends over time. Changes are detected and contextualized against historical patterns — not just surfaced as raw results.

What types of research briefs does the agent produce?

The agent produces competitive intelligence briefs, market intelligence summaries, literature reviews, patent landscape maps, and news digests — all with cited sources, confidence levels, and recommended actions formatted for executive consumption.

Can the agent track academic research?

Yes. The literature review skill sweeps academic databases (arXiv, Semantic Scholar, PubMed) for new papers in your research areas, summarizes key findings and methodology, graphs citations to identify influential work, and flags research gaps for exploration.