The Problem
Useful research often arrives as a pile of reports, interview notes, webpage excerpts, and internal documents. The difficult part is not producing more prose. It is keeping each conclusion connected to the evidence, noticing when sources disagree, and making missing information visible before someone acts on the brief.
A generic summary can sound confident while silently dropping caveats or mixing facts with inference. ANTS is designed around the opposite workflow: supplied evidence stays visible, the draft remains editable, and approval freezes the exact version a person reviewed.
How the Research Ant Works
The current product is a supplied-source synthesis workbench. It does not browse the web, retrieve a URL, monitor a company, or independently verify that a source is accurate or current.
1. Define the decision
Write the research question, intended audience, scope, and optional evidence cutoff. A focused question makes it easier to distinguish a useful finding from background information.
2. Add the sources you are allowed to use
Paste source text and label its provenance. A URL can be recorded as a reference, but ANTS does not open it. Saved Ant knowledge is opt-in for each run and is never included silently.
3. Draft a traceable synthesis
Start with the manual editor or explicitly confirm an optional AI draft. Findings carry source references and exact evidence excerpts. Contradictions, uncertainties, and suggested next questions stay separate from the executive summary.
4. Review and approve the exact version
Open the frozen source snapshots, check every finding, edit the draft, and approve only the version you reviewed. Approval does not verify the sources, publish the brief, or perform a follow-up action.
What Makes It Different
- Visible evidence: Findings point back to the exact supplied source text instead of relying on an invisible research trail.
- Conflicts stay visible: Disagreement and missing evidence are review sections, not problems the Ant resolves by guessing.
- Local-first history: Inputs, source snapshots, edits, runs, and immutable approvals stay in the versioned browser workspace unless you confirm an AI run.
- Honest capability: The current version synthesizes supplied material only. It does not browse, monitor, publish, update a CRM, or take external action.
Expected Results
The goal is not autonomous research. It is a faster path from material you already trust to a brief whose evidence, uncertainty, and human decisions remain inspectable.