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Before we jump into the different research capabilities, let's review some best practices that will help you get cleaner, more accurate results every time.

✅ Best Practices for Company Research

Following these two simple practices will dramatically improve the quality of your research results:

1️⃣ Use the company's domain instead of just the company name. Instead of typing "Stripe," use "stripe.com." This ensures Clay pulls the correct company data without any ambiguity.

2️⃣ Do one company at a time. Don't research multiple companies in the same chat. If you need to research a new company, start a fresh chat. This keeps your context clean and your results focused.

There are exceptions to this rule, and we'll show you one below where comparing companies makes sense.

🥊 Use Case: Competitive Research

When you need to understand how two competitors stack up against each other, you can research them together in the same chat.

Here's an example prompt:

@Clay research and compare the hiring trends of OpenAI.com and Anthropic.com; summarize what they're focused on comparatively.

This type of comparative analysis helps you understand where competitors are investing, what roles they're prioritizing, and how their strategic focus differs. Instead of researching each company separately and manually comparing notes, Clay pulls the data and synthesizes the comparison for you.

🎯 Use Case: Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Sometimes you need a comprehensive view of a single company across multiple dimensions - hiring, technology, and product strategy all at once.

Here's how to request that:

@Clay please research Notion.com's overall hiring trends, tech stack, and any new product announcements

This gives you a holistic picture of what's happening at the company. You'll see where they're hiring (indicating growth areas), what technologies they're using (revealing their technical infrastructure), and what new products they're launching (showing strategic direction). All of this intelligence in one consolidated research request.

📄 Use Case: Using Claygent for Deep Research

For the most sophisticated research - like analyzing SEC filings or other complex documents - you can leverage Claygent directly from ChatGPT.

Here's an example:

@Clay use Claygent to review Intuit.com's latest 10-K and summarize priorities, leadership changes, and headcount trends

Claygent will actually review the company's 10-K filing and extract the specific insights you're looking for. This saves you from manually reading through hundreds of pages of financial documents to find the strategic signals that matter for your sales or research process.

🎬 What's Next

That's it for company research using Clay in ChatGPT.

Next, we'll look at how you can even do outreach work directly in ChatGPT, taking your workflow from research all the way through to prospect communication.