AlphaSense vs. HP Autonomy Intelligent Universal Search (discontinued)

AlphaSense works very well for researching topics related to companies, technologies and/or industries. The information access is super useful. Sorting by search relevance and filtering by source type can help curate the information to what you are looking for. One area that could use some help is how to digest that information down to usable chunks. If your goal is to synthesize the information into your research, then the platform seems to have some tools to help do that, but it will still be a manual process. A CoPilot or similar integration could go a long way to improving the time to value of using this tool and the information it gathers for you.

Incentivized

It does a decent job at its core functions (that other free software does just as well or better).

• Key market trends- I input a topic name and get information related to the topic.
• Competitor filings- Alphasense is able to get all the regulatory documents quickly.
• Earnings calls- Alphasense now provides transcripts, which is incredibly helpful when I can't attend the earnings call live.

Incentivized

• It adheres to traditional Microsoft standards such as: fact-dump documentation with no coherent story or 'best practices' information, inability to automate common tasks, intentional obfuscation of its basic operations.
• It provides OK search results. Not great, but OK.

• Provide access to research reports on latest technology topics like Small Modular Reactor in Nuclear industry
• Curate end industry commentary based on particular account expectations on regular basis ( monthly/bi monthly)
• Mail communication regarding latest topics that are included to the AlphaSense library

Incentivized

• There are about a dozen different config files to maintain, and the most important one is dynamically modified by Autonomy itself while it runs. Which means that it is impossible to automate the configuration or keep the configs in versioned source control. Even `cp *.cfg ~/cfgbak/` won't help you roll back a change, because it is never safe to restore a previous config. You'll be using `diff new.cfg old.cfg` a lot.
• The Linux port is poorly thought out. The binaries are named *.exe. The StartService.sh scripts contain both `echo 'Are you sure you want to start the service? Hit ctrl-C to cancel''; read dummy` and, I kid you not, a `chmod a+x /path/to/my/binary.exe`.
• Many features are poorly documented, leading to lots of back and forth with the support department just to answer basic questions like "what does this error code in my logs signify?"
• It seems to reinvent the wheel, poorly, everywhere. E.g. the scheduled backup feature rolls through a user-defined finite list of directories in which to store backups. On day 0 it uses directory 0, on day 1 it uses directory 1, and after day N it rolls back and overwrites directory 0. Why would this be preferable to using a single directory and naming zip files based on the current timestamp?

AlphaSense is a very useful tool and is reasonably priced for our organization. While I may not be a hyper-active user, it's a great resource when I need to quickly do a competitive landscape survey, review publicly available documents (transcripts, etc.), or review Wall Street research

Incentivized

Management wants to see ROI on the (hefty) cost of purchasing this software, and has mandated that we continue using it. We would prefer to switch immediately.

The ability to quickly move between transcripts/research is excellent, as is the previews generated of excerpts around search terms, and really increases efficiency/ability to find what you are looking for. The advanced search functionality is more challenging to use, and can some times be difficult to figure out how to set the exact parameters you are looking for (however, once you have the search in place, it is easy to amend)

Incentivized

The availability of Alphasense is great. I have used the software for multiple years and cannot remember ever having an outage issue. This is surprising actually, as I use other software applications that do not have regular outages, but still have outages periodically. Alphasense, on the other hand, never seems to have any outages. Good sign if I can't remember the software not working :).

Incentivized

Loading or performing searches on AlphaSense platform is reasonably fast for most of the time. However, it is sometimes unacceptably long for me to load PDF files (earnings presentation, supplementary financial report) on AlphaSense. Certain features might also take very long time, such as loading for "similar tables" across EDGAR filings, or downloading tables from EDGAR filings

Incentivized

Customer support is very prompt. I get personalized support for search recommendations and content that I could not find in my own search. Support checks in with me on a bi-monthly basis to keep me informed of the many different feature additions, I cannot find a more kind, understanding, and supportive team.

The person was prepared, attentive, understood the nature of my questions, was willing to work through any difficulties or misunderstandings, was patient, and super pleasant to work with. Great customer service.

Incentivized

Trainers address the basics, and such training was meant for new users. Instructions are really helpful by providing scenarios that our team will face in our daily tasks. It will be more thoughtful if the training is conducted by case studies so as to allow new users to get first-hand experience during the training.

Incentivized

seamless integration

Incentivized

We primarily use Aiera for live transcripts but their transcripts are not as accurate and a bit more glitchy. AlphaSense is really strong on that front and even organizes your printouts with smart summaries and a collection of all of your highlights. It is much better for organizing your thoughts.

Incentivized

I believe this service is highly affordable for the value it creates. I think it is priced appropriately

Incentivized

The sharing features provides by AlphaSense mean that it can be readily scaled for teams within an organization and, subject to compliance requirements, with client organizations. The ability to share annotations of transcripts and investor releases is valuable, and facilitates collaboration between analysts.

Incentivized

Very professional and knowledgeable team. Easy to work with and communicates in a way that's helpful for users who aren't experts on the platform

Incentivized

• AlphaSense has allowed us to generate deeper competitive insights. For example, we conducted an in depth analysis of the aerial data analytics (drone) industry, and AlphSense helped us narrow in on the market leaders and their various strengths / weaknesses.
• AlphaSense has improved our team's overall efficiency. With Stream in particular, we are able to pinpoint insights in a matter of minutes through the transcript feature as opposed to having to conduct a series of calls ourselves. This is a significant time saver.
• AlphaSense has allowed us to make more informed decisions on our public holdings by providing us with unfettered access to equity research analyst reports.

Incentivized

• I have learned to tack a zero onto the end of any estimate I make for how long an Autonomy change will take in both planning and implementation.