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Bruno Ashford @brunoashfordSubscribeModule 6 · Lesson 6.4 · 11 min
Browser and Web Research
Use the agent for market and competitor research on the web and in your own browser, with sources you can check.
Use ← → to move. The marker highlights text and the pencil draws on the slide; navigation locks while you annotate. Undo removes the last mark, Esc exits.
1Use web search for public research
For public information such as competitor websites, pricing pages, news and reviews, you do not need any extra setup. Claude Code can search the web and fetch pages. Ask it to cite every source with a link.
Research the five main competitors of my business in my city (see CLAUDE.md for what we sell and where). For each, find: services, published prices or price ranges, main promise on their homepage, review rating and count, and one weakness customers mention in reviews. Cite a link for every fact. Put it in a table, then give me three positioning gaps we could own.2Connect your browser for signed-in work
Some research lives behind a login: your ad accounts, a review platform dashboard, an industry portal. Install the Claude in Chrome extension and start Claude Code with the Chrome flag. Claude opens its own tabs, uses your existing sign-ins, and pauses when it hits a login page or a CAPTCHA so you handle it yourself.
claude --chrome3Control which sites it may touch
Site permissions come from the Chrome extension settings. Allow only the sites you need for the task, and approve browser actions when asked. Run /chrome to check the connection or reconnect if it drops during a long session.
4Save the output as a file, not just a chat
Ask Claude to save each research run to a dated file in your project, for example research/competitors-2026-10.md. Next month you run the same prompt and ask for a comparison. Now you have a trend, not a snapshot.
Save this competitor table to research/competitors-[today's date].md. If an earlier file exists in that folder, add a section called 'What changed since last time' comparing prices, promises and review counts.5Verify before you act
Web pages change and agents can misread them. Spot-check three facts per report by clicking the cited links. If a number drives a decision, like cutting your price, verify it yourself.
A law firm partner told me she paid a junior associate two full days to compare the websites, pricing pages and reviews of eight competing firms. The report was good. It was also out of date the week it was delivered.
Claude Code can search the web, read pages, and, with the Claude in Chrome extension, work inside your own browser where you are already signed in. That turns competitor research from a two-day project into a repeatable 20-minute routine you can run every month.
Key points
- Public web research needs no setup: ask for links on every fact.
- The Claude in Chrome extension lets the agent work in your signed-in browser.
- You control sites through extension permissions and approve actions.
- Dated files turn one-off research into a monthly trend.
Avoid
- Accepting a research table without clicking any of the sources.
- Leaving browser access enabled on every site when the task needs two.
- Asking for 'research' with no list of fields, and getting an essay instead of a table.
A 12-person marketing agency runs this routine on the first Monday of each month for each retainer client. Claude researches the client's top competitors, saves a dated file, and highlights what changed. Account managers open the file, verify the highlights, and bring one insight to the monthly client call. What used to be an occasional 'competitor audit' sold as an extra is now a standard part of every report.