How do I use AI for competitor research and ongoing competitor monitoring?

Use a deep research run for the one-off teardown (features, pricing, positioning, reviews, hiring signals), then set up cheap monitoring so changes come to you: page-change alerts, review scrapers and AI summaries into Slack can cost under $20 a month. Remember the failure mode: AI often misses launches and pricing changes from recent weeks, so verify anything decision-critical on the competitor's live site. Increasingly you should also track what AI assistants say about you versus competitors, because buyers now ask them first.

A quick orientation. The real value is below: resources worth your time, from people who've actually done it.