Conduct research to gain information about products or processes
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can find, read and summarise the sources this work depends on, and it can cover far more of them than a person would ever open. What it does not do is decide which sources deserve trust, or what the findings mean for your situation.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Research and retrieval work |
| Jobs that do it | 17 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Web, data and docs, Generalist agents |
| O*NET activity | Getting Information (4.A.1.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 17 occupations that perform it.
- Direct or conduct studies or research on issues affecting areas of responsibility.
- Conduct own research in field of expertise.
- Design, conduct, or provide support to nursing informatics research.
- Research hardware or software products to meet technical networking or security needs.
- Conduct office automation feasibility studies, including workflow analysis, space design, or cost comparison analysis.
- Research and test new or modified hardware or software products to determine performance and interoperability.
- Communicate with telecommunications vendors to obtain pricing and technical specifications for available hardware, software, or services.
- Research new technologies by attending seminars, reading trade articles, or taking classes, and implement or recommend the implementation of new technologies.
- Research, document, rate, or select alternatives for Web architecture or technologies.
- Research and apply innovative solutions for product design, visuals, and user experience to meet the needs of individual Web development projects.
- Conduct research, data analysis, systems design, or support for software such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or Global Positioning Systems (GPS) mapping software.
- Research, test, or verify proper functioning of software patches and fixes.
- Observe the current system in operation, and gather and analyze information about each of the component problems, using a variety of sources.
- Conduct research in surveying and mapping methods, using knowledge of photogrammetric map compilation and electronic data processing.
- Conduct research on the structures and properties of materials, such as metals, alloys, polymers, and ceramics, to obtain information that could be used to develop new products or enhance existing ones.
- Plan or conduct geological, geochemical, or geophysical field studies or surveys, sample collection, or drilling and testing programs used to collect data for research or application.
- Participate in the research, development, or manufacturing of medicinal and pharmaceutical preparations.
- Communicate with vendors to gather information about products, alert them to future needs, resolve problems, or address system maintenance issues.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for research and retrieval work, and what it costs.
Research is the one shape of work that needs no integration at all, so a single $20 assistant with browsing is the whole stack. Add a crawler only once you are pulling hundreds of pages on a schedule rather than reading a few.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Generalist agents
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
17 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Biological Technicians
- Chief Executives
- Computer Network Architects
- Computer Network Support Specialists
- Computer Systems Engineers/Architects
- Computer User Support Specialists
- Geographic Information Systems Technologists and Technicians
- Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers
- Health Informatics Specialists
- Materials Scientists
- Natural Sciences Managers
- Network and Computer Systems Administrators
- Operations Research Analysts
- Surveyors
- Telecommunications Engineering Specialists
- Web and Digital Interface Designers
- Web Developers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Research technology designs or applications”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.