Weekly competitor intelligence sweep with Exa, Notion, and Slack

Every Monday at 8am local time, run a weekly competitor intelligence sweep across the companies I track in Notion, log every fresh signal as a structured entry in another Notion database, and post a single curated digest of the most strategically important moves to my Slack #competitive channel.

Step 1. Read my watchlist. Query my Notion Tracked Competitors data source and pull each competitor's company name and website URL. Treat this as the source of truth for who to research this week. If I add a new competitor row in Notion before the next run, it should be picked up automatically.

Step 2. Research each competitor with Exa. For each company on the watchlist, use Exa Search with a roughly 7-day recency filter (around 168 hours) and include the company name in the query. Pull contents and summaries on the top results. Optionally use Exa Answer or Get Contents to synthesize what happened. Look for signals across these categories: product launches and feature releases, pricing or positioning changes, leadership hires or departures, fundraising rounds, notable customer wins or case studies, and notable hiring patterns (big sales build-out, sudden engineering hiring in a new area, etc.).

Step 3. Dedupe before writing. Before creating anything in Notion, query the existing Competitor Intel data source and skip any signal whose source URL is already logged for that competitor. I do not want duplicate entries. Only brand new source URLs should make it through.

Step 4. Log fresh signals to Notion. For every new signal that survives dedupe, create a new page in my Competitor Intel database with these properties filled in: Competitor (the company name, ideally linked to the Tracked Competitors row), Category (one of: Product, Pricing, Leadership, Funding, Customers, Hiring, Other), Headline (a short title that names the move), Summary (2 to 4 sentences explaining what happened and why it matters), Source URL, and Date (when the signal was published).

Step 5. Post a curated Slack digest. After logging, send a single message to my Slack #competitive channel highlighting only the top 3 to 5 most strategically important moves of the week across all competitors. Order them by importance, not alphabetically. For each item, include the competitor name, the category, one tight sentence on what happened and why a head of product or head of sales should care, and a link back to the Notion entry (or the source URL if the Notion page link is awkward). Prioritize substance over volume: drop noisy press release rewrites, vague thought-leadership posts, and recycled funding rumors. If a competitor had a quiet week, just leave them out of the Slack digest. The full list still lives in Notion.

Tone for the Slack message: punchy, analyst-style, no hedging. Lead with the move, not the company. Use Slack mrkdwn formatting (single asterisks for bold, angle-bracket links). Keep the whole digest skim-friendly in under about 60 seconds of reading.

Ask me at setup for: the Notion Tracked Competitors database (or data source) ID, the Notion Competitor Intel database (or data source) ID, and the Slack channel name to post into. Default the timezone to mine. If either Notion database is missing required properties, surface that clearly before the first run.

Additional information

What does this prompt do?

Pulls every competitor from your Notion Tracked Competitors database so you only manage the list in one place.
Searches the web for last week's product launches, pricing changes, leadership moves, fundraising, customer wins, and hiring patterns at each company.
Skips anything already logged so you never see the same story twice.
Files each fresh signal as its own structured entry in your Notion Competitor Intel database with category, headline, summary, source link, and date.
Posts a single Slack digest with the top 3 to 5 moves of the week, linked back to the Notion entries so anyone can dig in.

What do I need to use this?

A Notion workspace with a Tracked Competitors database (one row per company, including a website) and a Competitor Intel database for the logged signals.
An Exa account for the weekly web research.
A Slack workspace and the channel you want the digest posted in, such as #competitive.

How can I customize it?

Change the schedule (different day, different time, or run it daily during a launch window).
Adjust the categories you care about, like adding regulatory filings or partnership announcements, or dropping ones that are noisy for your space.
Pick a different Slack channel or send the digest as a DM to the head of product or head of sales instead.

Frequently asked questions

How does it know which competitors to watch?

It reads them from your Notion Tracked Competitors database every Monday morning. Add a new row in Notion and it gets included in the next sweep automatically. No code change needed.

Will I get the same news twice?

No. Before writing anything, the agent checks your Competitor Intel database for entries with the same source link for that competitor and skips them. Each signal is only logged and surfaced once.

Why post only the top 3 to 5 in Slack instead of everything?

Slack should be a signal, not a firehose. The agent prioritizes the moves a head of product or head of sales would actually care about, and drops noisy press release rewrites. The full list still lives in Notion for anyone who wants to drill in.

Can I change which Slack channel it posts in?

Yes. Pick the channel during setup, or change it later. You can also point it at a private channel or send it as a direct message to a specific person.

What if a competitor had a quiet week?

The agent just skips them in the Slack digest rather than padding it with weak items. Quiet weeks read as quiet weeks, which is itself useful signal.