# Novelty Detector

## What It Is

The Novelty Detector skill gives your assignments a structured methodology for monitoring competitors and spotting new product launches before your team hears about them through other channels. It scans competitor websites, trade press, and price comparison platforms for explicit novelty signals — "New" badges, "New arrivals" sections, weekly flyer features, and launch announcements — and delivers a structured report of findings.

This is a default skill — ready to use immediately without any setup.

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## What It Can Do

### Competitor Website Scanning

Navigate competitor websites to find products explicitly flagged as new: "New arrivals" pages, novelty-filtered catalog views, and seasonal launch sections. Works across retailers, brand websites, and catalog aggregators.

### Trade Press Monitoring

Search trade publications and industry news for competitor launch announcements. Surfaces products announced in the press that may not yet be visible on the competitor's own website.

### Novelty Signal Classification

For each product found, identify the novelty signal (e.g., "New badge on competitor listing", "Featured in weekly flyer") and classify the innovation type: new-to-market, trend adoption, private label innovation, or line extension.

### Structured Output Delivery

Deliver findings via whatever connections are available — spreadsheets for the full list, messaging channels for a summary, or a markdown report in the conversation if no output connections are configured.

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## When to Use It

Use the Novelty Detector skill when your assignment needs to:

* **Run scheduled competitor scans**: Monitor a competitor category weekly or bi-weekly without manual browsing
* **Prepare for category reviews**: Understand what competitors have launched before a range planning session
* **React quickly to market moves**: Get a fast read on what a specific competitor has introduced in a category
* **Support assortment decisions**: Build evidence for range expansion proposals by showing what competitors have done first
* **Track post-trade-show launches**: Scan for new products after industry events when competitors typically refresh their catalogs

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## Example Tasks

* "Scan Lidl and Aldi's websites for new plant-based products launched in the last 4 weeks"
* "What has Tesco introduced in the premium ready meals category this quarter? Check their website and trade press"
* "Give me a weekly novelty report for our top 3 competitors in the snacks category — send results to our Slack channel"
* "Find any new private label dairy products from Rewe and Edeka and add them to the tracker spreadsheet"

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## How to Use

1. Open the assignment you want to configure
2. In the assignment settings, find the Skills section
3. Select the Novelty Detector skill
4. In your assignment's SOP, specify which competitors to monitor, which product categories to focus on, and any market or region context
5. Connect the tools the skill needs: Enterprise Browser and Exa Search (both always available); optionally Google Sheets, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, or Outlook for output delivery

The skill's scanning workflow and classification logic are applied automatically when the assignment runs.

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## Things to Know

* This is a default skill available to all teams
* The skill only reports products explicitly flagged as new by the source — it does not make its own novelty judgements by comparing catalogs over time
* This approach means it works reliably from the very first run, without any historical data
* The skill respects robots.txt and rate-limits requests; if a site blocks access, it notes this and continues with other sources
* Innovation type classification (new-to-market, trend adoption, etc.) is best-effort based on available context
* Pairs well with the Competitor Intelligence skill (for deeper strategic context on the same competitors) and the Supplier Discovery skill (to find which suppliers are behind new competitor launches)