How Steve Turns Competitor News Into Actionable Intelligence
See how Steve automatically monitors competitor news, categorizes announcements, and delivers instant Slack alerts—transforming noise into strategic insights.
Product marketers spend hours each week hunting for competitor news. You're checking TechCrunch for funding announcements, scanning LinkedIn for product updates, monitoring industry publications for partnership news. By the time you find something important, it's already old—and you've missed the critical window to brief your sales team or adjust positioning.
This reactive approach means you're always behind. Competitors announce features that directly compete with your roadmap, and your team doesn't find out until customers start asking about them during sales calls.
How Steve Automates Competitor News Monitoring
Steve eliminates manual news monitoring through automated collection and intelligent categorization. Instead of hunting for news, Steve delivers it to you—categorized, summarized, and ready for action.
Automatic News Collection for All Competitors
The moment you add a competitor to Steve, automated news monitoring begins. Steve continuously scans:
Industry Publications: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, industry-specific news sites Company Announcements: Competitor blog posts and press releases Social Media: LinkedIn company updates and executive posts News Aggregators: Multiple sources across the web
Navigate to News in your Steve project to see all collected competitor news in one feed.
Screenshot description: Capture the News page at /projects/[id]/news showing a feed of 5-7 news articles. Each news tile should display: the source logo/favicon, article title, summary text (2-3 lines), timestamp ("2 days ago"), and 1-2 category badges (like "Product Updates", "Fundraising"). Show the filters at the top for competitor selection, category filter, and date range picker. Highlight the variety of categories with colored badges.
Each news item displays:
- Article title and source publication
- AI-generated summary (2-3 sentences)
- Auto-detected categories (Product, Financial, Partnerships, etc.)
- Publication timestamp and source URL
- Featured image if available from the article
News updates continuously—no manual refreshing required. When competitors make announcements, Steve adds them to your feed within minutes.
AI-Powered Categorization
Steve doesn't just collect news—it automatically categorizes every article into one of 8 strategic categories:
Product Updates: New features, product launches, capabilities Fundraising: Funding rounds, valuations, investor news Financial: Revenue reports, acquisitions, financial performance Partnerships: Integration announcements, strategic partnerships Leadership Changes: New executives, team expansions, departures Promotions: Special offers, discounts, sales campaigns Business News: General company news and strategy updates Product: Product-related announcements and updates
Screenshot description: Capture a close-up of a single news tile showing clear category badges. Display an article with 2-3 category badges visible (e.g., "Product Updates" in purple, "Partnerships" in blue). Highlight the category badges section with an arrow or border to draw attention to the automatic categorization feature.
This categorization happens automatically using AI. You don't tag articles manually—Steve reads the content and identifies what type of announcement it is.
The categories let you filter strategically. Product teams filter for "Product Updates" to track competitive features. Finance teams monitor "Fundraising" to understand market dynamics. Sales leaders watch "Promotions" to counter competitive discounts.
Filtering News by Competitor, Category, and Time
The News page provides powerful filtering to surface exactly what matters:
Filter by Competitor: View news for a specific competitor or all at once Filter by Category: Show only Product Updates, Financial news, Partnerships, etc. Filter by Date Range: Last 7 days, last 30 days, last 3 months, or custom range Filter by Source Domain: See news only from specific publications (TechCrunch, Bloomberg, etc.)
These filters combine—view "Product Updates" from "Competitor X" in the "Last 7 days" to catch their latest feature launches.
The filtering happens client-side with instant results. No page reloads or waiting for queries.
Slack Alerts for Critical News
Reading a news feed doesn't scale. You need competitor intelligence delivered automatically when it matters.
Steve's News Alerts post competitor news directly to Slack channels. Configure alerts once, and Steve handles distribution automatically.
Navigate to News → View Settings to configure alerts.
Screenshot description: Capture the News Alerts settings page at /projects/[id]/news/alerts. Show the table of configured alerts with columns for "Slack Channel", "Categories", "Competitors", and "Actions". Display at least 2-3 configured alerts showing different combinations of filters. Highlight one alert row that shows "#competitive-intel" channel with category badges "Product Updates" and "Fundraising" and competitor badges for 2-3 competitors. Add arrows pointing to the category and competitor filters to emphasize the customization.
Create an alert by selecting:
- Slack channel to post updates (#sales, #product, #competitive-intel)
- Categories to monitor (Product Updates, Fundraising, Partnerships, etc.)
- Specific competitors to track (or all competitors)
Steve posts matching news to Slack automatically. When a tracked competitor announces a funding round (and you're monitoring "Fundraising"), Steve posts to your configured channel within minutes.
Each Slack notification includes:
- Article headline and summary
- Category and competitor name
- Direct link to the full article
- Timestamp and source
Your sales team sees competitive intelligence without checking Steve. Product teams get feature launch alerts automatically. Executives monitor fundraising news without manual searches.
Multiple Alerts for Different Teams
Different teams care about different news. Sales wants pricing and promotions. Product wants feature launches. Executives want fundraising and acquisitions.
Steve supports multiple news alerts with different configurations:
Sales team alert:
- Channel: #sales-enablement
- Categories: Promotions, Pricing
- Competitors: Top 5 direct competitors
Product team alert:
- Channel: #product-intel
- Categories: Product Updates, Partnerships
- Competitors: All tracked competitors
Executive alert:
- Channel: #exec-briefing
- Categories: Fundraising, Financial, Leadership Changes
- Competitors: Top 3 strategic competitors
Each alert operates independently. The same news item can post to multiple channels if it matches different alert criteria.
AI-Generated Summaries
Every news article Steve collects includes an AI-generated summary. You don't need to click through to understand what happened—the summary provides the key points in 2-3 sentences.
Summaries answer:
- What was announced?
- Why does it matter?
- Who is involved?
For longer articles, Steve also generates a short summary (1 sentence) for quick scanning. See the full summary by clicking the news tile.
These summaries save hours of reading time. Instead of reading 10 full articles to find the one that matters, scan 10 summaries in under a minute.
Share News Collections with Your Team
Found multiple news items that tell a strategic story? Select them and share as a collection.
On the News page, use the checkboxes to select multiple articles, then click Share Selected News. Steve creates a shareable collection with all selected articles, summaries, and context.
Share collections via:
- Direct link (anyone with link can view)
- Email to specific team members
- Export as PDF for presentations
- Post to Slack channels
This feature helps you connect the dots across multiple announcements. Three separate news items about a competitor might reveal a strategic shift—share them together to highlight the pattern.
Refresh News Manually When Needed
Steve monitors news continuously, but sometimes you want to trigger an immediate refresh. Perhaps you just heard about a major announcement and want Steve to fetch it now.
Click Refresh News on the News page. Steve immediately queues news collection jobs for all your tracked competitors. New articles appear in the feed within minutes.
Use this when:
- You see breaking news on Twitter about a competitor
- A competitor just published a major announcement
- You're preparing for a meeting and need the latest intelligence
- You added a new competitor and want their recent news immediately
The refresh runs in the background. You can continue working while Steve collects the latest news.
News as Context for AI Chat and Battle Cards
Steve doesn't treat news as isolated information. Competitor news feeds into other intelligence systems:
AI Chat Queries: Ask Steve questions like "What product updates did Competitor X announce this month?" and get answers sourced from the news feed
Battle Card Generation: When generating battle cards, Steve incorporates recent news about competitors to provide current context
Competitive Reports: News summaries appear in automated competitive intelligence reports
Trend Analysis: Steve identifies patterns across news items to spot strategic shifts
This integration means news doesn't sit unused in a feed—it actively informs your competitive strategy.
From Noise to Signal
Without Steve, competitor news monitoring looks like:
Manual process:
- Set up Google Alerts for 10 competitors (receive 50+ emails per day)
- Check TechCrunch, LinkedIn, competitor blogs daily (30-60 minutes)
- Read through articles to determine relevance (15-30 minutes per article)
- Manually forward important news to team via Slack/email
- Repeat daily
Result: Information overload, missed announcements, delayed responses
Steve's automated process:
- Steve monitors all news sources continuously
- AI categorizes and summarizes every article
- Slack alerts deliver critical news to the right teams instantly
- News feed provides central hub for all competitive intelligence
Result: Signal without noise, instant awareness, strategic response time
Beyond News: LinkedIn Monitoring
Steve's news monitoring extends to LinkedIn company updates. Competitor LinkedIn posts often contain strategic information before it appears in press releases:
- Product teasers and launch hints
- Employee announcements revealing team expansions
- Thought leadership indicating strategic direction
- Customer success stories highlighting wins
Steve monitors competitor LinkedIn pages and includes posts in your news feed alongside traditional news articles. Filter by "LinkedIn" to see only social updates, or view everything together.
Get Started with News Monitoring
Ready to stop manually hunting for competitor news?
- Navigate to News in your Steve project
- View automatically collected news for all your tracked competitors
- Configure News Alerts to deliver updates via Slack
- Filter by category and competitor to find what matters
- Share important news with your team
Steve handles continuous monitoring, categorization, and distribution—you handle strategic response.
Related Resources
- Monitor Competitor News - Getting started with news monitoring
- Setup News Alerts - Configure Slack notifications
- Add Competitors - Start tracking new competitors