My First Agent: Setting Up Your First AI Analyst on ClearEdge
What Is a ClearEdge Agent?
A ClearEdge agent is a specialized AI analyst that you configure once and run on demand — or on a schedule. Each agent is focused on a specific type of research:
- Market Research — trends, market sizing, industry reports
- Financial Analysis — KPI tracking, revenue modeling, forecasting
- Competitive Intelligence — competitor tracking, SWOT analysis, feature comparisons
- Content & Data Analysis — sentiment analysis, SEO research, social listening
Unlike generic chatbots, your agent remembers its focus area, knows which data sources to prioritize, and delivers structured reports — not chat responses.
Step 1: Create Your Account
Head to the ClearEdge Intelligence homepage and click Get Started. Sign up with your email and password. You'll automatically receive 100 free credits — enough to run several analyses and explore every analyst type.
No credit card required. You're in.
Step 2: Navigate to My Team
Once you're signed in, you'll land on the Dashboard. Click My Team in the sidebar — this is where you'll build your analyst roster.
You'll see an empty state with a big Add Your First Analyst button. Click it.
Step 3: Choose Your Analyst Type
A dialog will appear with four analyst types. For this tutorial, let's pick Market Research — it's the most versatile starting point.
Each type comes pre-configured with sensible defaults for data sources and output format. You can customize everything in the next step.
Step 4: Configure Your Analyst
Now you'll see the configuration form. Here's what each field does:
Analyst Name
Give it a descriptive name that reflects what it does. For example:
- "SaaS Competitor Tracker"
- "AI Industry Trends"
- "Q2 Market Report"
This is just for your reference — pick something you'll recognize later.
Focus Area
This is the most important field. Be specific about what you want this analyst to research. The more detail you provide, the better the results.
Too vague: "AI trends"
Just right: "Emerging trends in AI agent platforms for small and mid-size businesses, focusing on pricing models, key features, and adoption rates in 2026"
Think of it like briefing a human analyst — give them enough context to do excellent work.
Data Sources
Check the boxes for where you want the analyst to look. For market research, Web Search, News Articles, and Industry Reports are good defaults.
Output Format
Choose how you want results delivered:
- Full Report — detailed sections with analysis (best for deep dives)
- Executive Briefing — concise one-page summary (best for quick updates)
- Bullet Points — key findings as a scannable list
- Data Table — structured comparison format
For your first run, Full Report will give you the richest output to evaluate.
Custom Instructions (Optional)
Add any specific guidance. For example:
- "Focus on companies with under 100 employees"
- "Compare pricing tiers side by side"
- "Flag any data points from before 2025 as potentially outdated"
Click Add to Team when you're done.
Step 5: Run Your First Analysis
You'll see your new analyst appear as a card on the My Team page. Click the blue Run button.
The system will:
1. Check that you have enough credits
2. Create a run record
3. Start the analysis in the background
4. Redirect you to the results page
You'll see a loading state: "Analysis in progress... This typically takes 30-90 seconds."
Step 6: Read Your Results
When the analysis completes, the results page shows three sections:
The Report
Your analyst's findings, organized into the format you chose. For a Full Report, you'll see:
- Executive Summary — the key takeaway in 2-3 sentences
- Key Findings — numbered list of the most important discoveries
- Detailed Analysis — organized by theme with supporting evidence
- Recommendations — specific, actionable next steps
The Reasoning Chain
This is what makes ClearEdge different. Click Reasoning Chain to expand a step-by-step log of everything your analyst did:
- What searches it ran
- What pages it visited
- What data it extracted
- How it synthesized findings
Full transparency. No black box.
Sources
Every URL the analyst used, with titles and snippets. Click any source to verify the information yourself.
Step 7: Set Up a Schedule (Optional)
If you want recurring insights, go to Schedules in the sidebar and create a new schedule for your analyst. You can set:
- Frequency — daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly
- Time — when the analysis should run
- Email delivery — get results sent to your inbox
This is powerful for ongoing monitoring — set it and forget it.
Understanding Credits
Each analysis uses credits based on complexity:
- Base cost — 10-15 credits depending on analyst type
- Research steps — 1 credit per web search or page scrape
- Hard cap — maximum 50 credits per run, so costs are always predictable
Your free tier includes 100 credits. That's typically 5-8 full analyses. When you're ready for more, upgrade to a paid plan starting at $29/month for 500 credits.
Tips for Getting the Best Results
1. Be specific in your focus area. "Competitor analysis for project management tools targeting remote teams with 10-50 employees" will vastly outperform "competitor analysis."
2. Start with Full Report format. Once you understand what the analyst produces, switch to Executive Briefing or Bullets for faster reads.
3. Use custom instructions strategically. If your first run was good but missed something, add a custom instruction for the next run rather than rewriting the whole focus area.
4. Check the reasoning chain. If results seem off, the reasoning chain will show you exactly where the analysis went wrong — maybe a search returned irrelevant results, or a key source was missed.
5. Schedule weekly digests. The real power of ClearEdge is continuous intelligence. A weekly competitive scan is far more valuable than a one-time report.
What's Next?
Now that you've run your first analysis, try:
- Adding a Competitive Intelligence analyst to track specific rivals
- Setting up a weekly schedule for your market research agent
- Creating a Financial Analysis agent if you're tracking public companies or market metrics
Each analyst works independently, so you can build a full research team — each focused on what matters most to your business.
Welcome to ClearEdge Intelligence. Your AI analyst team is ready to work.