Use GenAI to Uncover New Insights into Your Competitors

These tools can help you sort through reams of annual reports, press releases, and other documents to extract critical information.

by

and

Stephan Schulte

by

and

Stephan Schulte

November 17, 2023

Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images

Summary.

Companies have a growing problem of information overload regarding markets and competitors, which often prevents the C-suite from making the best decisions available given the data at its disposal. While generative AI is often pitched as a way to create new content (information in, message out), it can work just as well — or depending on the application, even better — in reverse (message in, information out). And this counterintuitive application of generative AI is starting to enable leaders in marketing, strategy, and competitive intelligence to unearth strategically relevant insights about their competitors from documents made publicly available by those competitors. In other words, generative AI can become the watchful eye that spots useful insights in the field of competitive intelligence.

Shortly before ChatGPT became widely popular in late 2022, a Northern European manufacturer of specialized products for heavy industry, with over 18,000 employees and a presence in more than 60 countries, released an annual report running almost 200 pages. Of the 33,660 lines of text in the report, 14 were devoted to announcing that the company purchased of a plot of land in India.

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s AI practice. He is a coauthor of All-in on AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023).
JP

José Parra-Moyano is a professor of Digital Strategy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD Business School) in Switzerland. His research focuses on the management and economics of data and privacy, with a special focus on how organizations can use data analysis techniques and AI to increase their competitiveness. He is an award-wining teacher, whose research has been published in top tier academic journals.
KS

Karl Schmedders is a professor of Finance at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD Business School) in Switzerland, where he teaches and researches on strategy relevant topics, finance, decision making, and game theory. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University. His research focuses on quantitative methods in economics and finance. He has published numerous research articles in top tier international academic journals.
SS

Stephan Schulte is an expert in the application of analytics techniques to the field of competitors’ strategy. He holds a DBA from the University of Gloucestershire, from which he graduated with a thesis on new competitor accounting models for the German mechanical engineering sector.

Use GenAI to Uncover New Insights into Your Competitors

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