Competitor Analysis With AI: A Step-by-Step Workflow

By the end of this workflow you'll have a one-page competitor analysis covering three to five rivals: what they sell, what they charge, what customers praise and complain about, and where the gaps are that you can win. It takes about three to four hours the first time, mostly spent looking at real sources, and around an hour when you refresh it each quarter. AI does the sorting, summarising and pattern-spotting. You do the looking and the checking.

That split matters. A chatbot can sound sure about a business it knows nothing about, inventing a price or describing a shop that closed last year. So AI is your analyst here, not your source.

• Time to complete: 3 to 4 hours (first run), about 1 hour for quarterly updates

• Difficulty: Beginner

• Tools needed:

  • Any AI assistant with web search (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity all work)

  • A spreadsheet or notes app (Google Sheets, Excel or Notion)

  • Your phone, for Instagram, WhatsApp Business and Google Maps

  • The free copy-paste template further down this page

Before You Start

1. Know what you're deciding. A competitor analysis is only useful if it feeds a decision: setting prices, adding a product, writing your marketing plan. Write the decision down in one sentence. It stops you collecting facts you'll never use.

2. Pick your sources. For most small businesses in Nigeria, the useful evidence lives in a handful of places: the competitor's website, their Instagram feed and highlights, their WhatsApp Business product list, Google Maps reviews, Jumia or Konga listings if they sell there, and public posts on X, TikTok or Facebook. Bookmark them as you go.

3. Agree your ethics. Competitor research is normal and legal when you stick to public information. It stops being fair when you create fake accounts to get past private profiles, scrape personal data from customers, pose as a client with a made-up event to extract a detailed quote, or copy someone's photos and captions. You don't need any of that. Public information is more than enough to find real gaps. If you send a polite enquiry for a price list, it's fine to be an honest potential buyer, but don't invent a story.

If you're not sure which AI tool to use for the web research part, our Perplexity vs ChatGPT comparison explains where each one is stronger for source-backed answers.

Step 1: Define Your Market and Your Question

Tell the AI who you are, who you serve and what you need to decide. Without this frame, you'll get generic advice that could apply to anyone.

I run [business name], a [type of business] in [city/area], Nigeria.
My customers are mainly [describe customers: who they are, what they buy, how they order].
My price range is [₦ range] and I sell mainly through [channels, e.g. Instagram and WhatsApp].
I want to run a competitor analysis to help me decide: [your one-sentence decision].

Ask me up to five questions to sharpen the scope. Then suggest:
1. The types of competitors I should look at (direct, indirect, substitutes)
2. The 8 to 10 things I should compare for each one
3. Which public sources are best for each comparison point
Do not name specific competitors yet.

The last line is important. At this stage you don't want the AI guessing at names it might not really know.

Checkpoint: You have a one-sentence decision, a list of comparison points and a list of sources to check for each.

Step 2: Build Your Competitor Shortlist

Now find real competitors. Do the first pass yourself: search Google Maps for your category in your area, search Instagram hashtags your customers use, and ask five customers who else they considered. Then use an AI assistant with web search to fill gaps.

Using web search, find businesses that offer [product/service] in [city/area], Nigeria.
For each one, give me:
- Business name
- Where you found it (link or source name)
- Main channel (website, Instagram, WhatsApp, Jumia, physical shop)
- One line on what they seem to focus on

Only include businesses you can point to a source for. If you are not sure a business is still active, say so. Do not guess.

Open every link the AI returns. Is the account still posting? Are there recent reviews? Drop anything you can't confirm. Then pick three to five: two or three direct competitors, one bigger player customers compare you to, and one substitute (what people do instead of buying from anyone in your category).

Checkpoint: You have three to five confirmed competitors, each with at least one working link you've opened yourself.

Step 3: Collect the Evidence Yourself

This slow step is what makes your analysis trustworthy. Visit each source and copy the facts into a notes file, one section per competitor, with the date you saw each thing.

What to capture:

• Products and prices from their website, WhatsApp Business product list, Instagram highlights or Jumia listings. Screenshot price lists, because they change.

• Positioning from their bio, tagline and pinned posts. What promise do they lead with?

• Customer reviews from Google Maps, Jumia ratings and comments under posts. Copy the review text, not the reviewer's name. You don't need people's personal details.

• Delivery and ordering details: areas covered, minimum order, lead time, payment options.

• Activity: how often they post and whether they reply to comments.

Keep it raw. Don't summarise yet.

Checkpoint: You have a notes file with dated, sourced facts for every competitor, and screenshots of anything that might change.

Step 4: Let AI Organise the Evidence

Paste your notes for one competitor at a time into the AI. Ask it to sort, not to add.

Below are my raw notes on a competitor, collected from public sources on [date].
Organise them into these headings: Offer, Prices, Positioning, Ordering and delivery, Customer praise, Customer complaints, Marketing activity.

Rules:
- Use only the information in my notes. Do not add anything from your own knowledge.
- If a heading has no information, write "Not found".
- Keep prices exactly as written, in naira.
- Group similar review comments and say how many reviews mention each theme.

My notes:
[paste notes]

The review-count line turns a pile of comments into something you can act on. Seven of twelve reviews mentioning late delivery is a pattern. One complaint about portion size is noise.

Checkpoint: Each competitor now has a tidy profile that you can trace back, line by line, to your notes.

Step 5: Verify Before You Compare

Read each AI profile next to your notes. Look for changed numbers, invented themes or confident claims you can't find in your sources. AI tools can drift even when told to stick to your text. Our AI fact checker workflow has a full routine for this, but a quick version works for most competitor research.

Compare the profile you wrote with my original notes below.
List every statement in the profile that:
1. Is not directly supported by the notes
2. Changes a number, price or date
3. Generalises from fewer than three reviews
Quote the exact line from the notes that supports each remaining statement.

Profile:
[paste profile]

Original notes:
[paste notes]

Fix anything it flags. Then spot-check one price per competitor on the live source and update it if it has changed.

Checkpoint: Every claim in every profile has a source you can name and, ideally, a date.

Step 6: Fill the Competitor Analysis Template

Now combine the verified profiles into the comparison table (the full template is in its own section below). Ask the AI to build it from the verified profiles only.

Using only the verified competitor profiles below, fill this competitor analysis table.
Columns: [paste column headings from the template].
One row per competitor, plus a final row for my business using the details I give you.
Where data is missing, write "Not found" rather than guessing.
After the table, list three patterns you notice across competitors, each with the evidence behind it.

My business details: [your offer, prices, channels, strengths, known weaknesses]

Verified profiles:
[paste profiles]

Be honest in your own row. If customers have complained about your delivery times, put it in.

Checkpoint: You have one table with every competitor and your own business side by side, with gaps marked "Not found" instead of filled with guesses.

Step 7: Turn Findings Into Moves

A table is not a strategy. Turn it into one or two moves you can act on this month. A quick SWOT helps, using our free SWOT analysis template to lay it out.

Based on this competitor analysis table and my decision ([your one-sentence decision]):
1. Write a short SWOT for my business, using only evidence from the table.
2. Identify three gaps competitors are leaving open (unmet needs, repeated complaints, underserved areas or price points).
3. For each gap, suggest one specific move I could test within 30 days, with a cost estimate in naira and how I would measure whether it worked.
4. Flag any move that relies on an assumption I haven't checked.

Table:
[paste table]

Pick one or two moves. Then feed them into your marketing plan template so they get a budget, a channel and a deadline.

Checkpoint: You have a SWOT, three evidence-backed gaps and one or two moves with a cost, a deadline and a way to measure them.

Worked Example: An Abuja Small Chops Caterer

Halima Bello runs a small chops and finger food business from her kitchen in Gwarinpa, Abuja. She takes orders through Instagram and WhatsApp and caters birthdays, office events and church functions. Her decision: "Should I introduce a cheaper office-meeting pack, and how should I price it?"

Shortlist. She searched Google Maps for "small chops Abuja", checked two hashtags her customers use and asked her last ten clients who else they'd considered. Perplexity added two names, one of which had stopped posting eight months earlier, so she dropped it. Her final list: two home-based caterers in Gwarinpa and Kubwa, one larger catering company in Wuse 2 with a website, and a substitute (supermarket pastry trays, which several office clients mentioned).

Evidence. Over two evenings she screenshotted price lists from WhatsApp Business and Instagram highlights, copied around 40 Google Maps reviews (text only) and noted supermarket tray prices.

What AI found once the notes were organised:

• Both home-based rivals priced their party packs within a similar band to hers, but neither offered a pack sized for 10 to 15 people.

• The Wuse 2 company had strong reviews for presentation, but 6 of its 14 recent reviews mentioned late delivery to offices.

• Office clients used supermarket trays because they could buy them same day.

Verification. The AI's first summary said the Wuse 2 company "offers same-day delivery". Halima's verification prompt flagged it: her notes only said "delivery within Abuja". She removed the claim. She also rechecked one rival's price and found it had gone up since her first screenshot, so she updated it.

The move. She tested an "Office Tray for 12" at an estimated ₦28,000 to ₦32,000 (her own costing, based on ingredient prices that month), with orders before 10am delivered by 1pm in Central Area, Wuse and Maitama. Her measure: ten office orders in 30 days. The figures here are illustrative, so cost your own pack from current market prices.

Copy-Paste Competitor Analysis Template

Copy this competitor analysis template into Google Sheets, Excel or Notion. Keep the "Source and date" column: it separates analysis from guessing.

Under the table, add three lines:

• Our decision: [one sentence]

• Top patterns: [three, with evidence]

• Moves to test in the next 30 days: [one or two, with cost and measure]

Need to share findings with a partner or investor? Our guide to turning research into a clear brief shows how.

For a bigger market (several cities, or a national category like fintech apps), tools with deep research modes can draft a wider landscape. Our explainer on Perplexity Labs covers one. Treat any report like that as a lead list to verify, not finished research.

Common Mistakes

Asking AI to "analyse my competitors" with no evidence. You'll get plausible-sounding fiction. AI models can hallucinate details about small, local businesses, because there's little reliable information about them online.

Ignoring substitutes. Your real competitor might be customers doing it themselves.

Copying instead of learning. Seeing a rival's best-selling post is useful. Copying their captions or photos is not, and it damages your brand.

Using private or personal data. Don't paste customer names, phone numbers or private messages into an AI tool. Review text without names is enough.

Never updating it. Prices in Nigeria move quickly. Refresh your analysis every quarter.

Next Step

Take your one or two moves into the marketing plan template workflow linked in Step 7. It picks up where this one ends: budget, channels, content and a calendar.

FAQ

What is a competitor analysis?

A competitor analysis is a structured look at the businesses your customers could choose instead of you, comparing offers, prices, positioning, feedback and marketing so you can spot gaps.

Can AI do a competitor analysis for me?

AI can organise, summarise and compare evidence very quickly, and tools with web search can help you find competitors. It shouldn't be your only source, though. For small and local businesses especially, check every fact against the real website, social profile, listing or review page before you rely on it.

Which AI tool is best for competitor research?

Any assistant with web search and clear source citations works for finding competitors. Perplexity is built around cited answers, while ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are strong at organising what you paste in.

Is it legal to research my competitors?

Looking at public websites, posts, listings and reviews is normal business practice. Avoid fake accounts, joining private groups under false pretences, collecting personal data or copying photos and copy. If unsure, ask a lawyer.

How often should I update my competitor analysis?

Every three months suits most small businesses, sooner if a big competitor launches something new or prices shift sharply.

What should a competitor analysis template include?

At minimum: each competitor's offer, prices, target customer, positioning, customer praise and complaints, marketing activity, and the source and date for each fact. Add a row for your own business so you compare honestly.

How many competitors should I analyse?

Three to five is enough for most small businesses: two or three direct rivals, one bigger player and one substitute.