AI account research, explained plainly

AI account research means asking software to read about a company and write you a short brief: what it does, who decides, and what has changed lately. Done well it saves an hour per company. Done badly it produces fluent text that sounds like research and is not. This guide is about telling the two apart.

What a good brief contains

What the company does and who it serves, in plain words you could repeat to a colleague.
The size and place of the company, where they can be found.
Who decides on what you sell, by name and role.
One or two recent, dated events that give you a reason to write now.
The sources for each of those, so you can open them.
What could not be found, stated as such rather than filled in.

Research or a confident guess

A language model can write a convincing paragraph about almost any company, including one it knows nothing about. The paragraph reads the same whether it came from a search or from the model's memory. The difference is whether it looked anything up.

Tools that search the web as they work can attach the pages they used. A brief with no pages attached is the model's own account of the company. It may be right, and it is not something to put in an email without checking.

Five checks before you use a brief

Open one source. Does it say what the brief says it says?
Check the date of the recent event. A launch from three years ago is not a reason to write today.
Check the person. Is the role current, and is it the one who decides on your kind of purchase?
Check the address. Was it tested, or built from a pattern? Treat a pattern as a guess until it is proven.
Read the brief for anything it could have said about any company. If a line would fit every firm in the industry, it tells you nothing.

Where it goes wrong

Names and titles that were true once and have since changed.
Figures such as headcount or revenue stated precisely with no source.
Two similar companies merged into one.
Praise for the company's recent work that the research never read.
A recent event that is really a press release restated.

Using it in outreach

Research is only useful if it changes what you write. Use the recent event as the reason for the first line, and say it the way you would to someone you already know. Keep to what you could point to: if you cannot name the source, leave the line out.

It is also fair to leave things out. A short email that mentions one checked fact is stronger than a long one that mentions six unchecked ones.

Where Accumen sits

Accumen researches each company when you search and keeps no stored contact lists. Each card shows the sources the research used. When no sources were cited, the card says so rather than presenting the brief as research. A confidence line under the summary marks the person, the email, the reason to write and the company details as confirmed, sourced, unconfirmed or not found. Where a card is thin, a button researches it again.

Frequently asked questions

What is AI account research?

It is software that reads about a company, often by searching the web, and writes a short brief covering what the company does, who decides and what has changed recently.

Can AI account research be wrong?

Yes. A brief with no sources attached is the model's own account of the company and can be out of date or invented. Open at least one source before you use a fact in an email.

How is AI account research different from a contact database?

A database is a stored list collected earlier. AI research looks at the company when you ask, so it can find recent events, but each fact needs checking.

Is there a free way to try it?

Accumen gives 25 verified contacts free, with no card. Run it on ten companies you already know and compare the briefs with what you know.