Competitor Signal

Origin & evolution

Competitive intelligence goes stale faster than almost anything else a team keeps. For decades it lived as prose: a quarterly competitive analysis📊Competitive AnalysisMarket IntelligenceA structured analysis of the competitive landscapeView reference →, a battle card kept current by hand. Prose is hard to query, and it records the state of the landscape on the day it was written, not how the landscape moved.

Modelling competitive moves as discrete, timestamped events is the shift the competitor signal captures. Each move becomes a row with provenance (when it was observed, from what source, with what confidence), so the competitive landscape stops being a document to rewrite and becomes a history to replay. The same approach underlies a product analytics event stream or a git log, where the recorded unit is the change rather than the current snapshot.

The reclassification signal extends this from manual logging to automatic capture. When a competitor is re-classified on an axis, moving, say, from ai_integrated to ai_agentic, the move is emitted as a signal at the classify-write chokepoint, carrying the axis and the from and to values. The competitive history then includes not only the moves recorded by hand but every structural reclassification, replayable through diff_classification.

How it works in practice

An analyst spots, in a rival’s changelog🕰️ChangelogProduct SpecificationA record of changes shipped in a releaseView reference →, that the rival shipped an autonomous agent mode. One competitor signal records it: signal_type: feature_launch, a factual one-line summary, the changelog URL as source, the observation date as observed_at, and a confidence rating. It links from the competitor via competitor_emits_competitor_signalCompetitoremitsCompetitor Signalhierarchy, maps to the comparable owned feature via competitor_signal_maps_to_featureCompetitor Signalmaps toFeaturecross-domain, and, because the move exposes a positioning🎪PositioningGo-To-MarketProduct positioning statementView reference → gap, attaches competitor_signal_surfaces_opportunityCompetitor SignalsurfacesOpportunitycross-domain.

Months later, "what has this competitor done this quarter?" is a single query against the signal stream. Because reclassification signals are auto-emitted, "how has this competitor’s AI maturity moved over the past year?" is answerable from the same stream, without anyone having logged each move by hand.

Competitor signal vs. its neighbours

• Competitor. A competitor is the standing entity: the rival itself, with its profile and classification. A competitor signal is one dated event that competitor emitted. One competitor accrues many signals over time.
• Competitive battle card⚔️Competitive Battle CardGo-To-MarketA competitive battle card for sales enablementView reference →. A battle card is a synthesised, durable positioning artefact for sales; a competitor signal is a single raw observation. Signals are the evidence🔎EvidenceValidationData supporting or refuting a hypothesisView reference → the battle card is kept current from, not a replacement for it.
• Classification value📍Classification ValueMarket IntelligenceA position or value on a classification axis, representing where one option lands on that dimension.View reference →. A classification value is the cell a competitor currently sits in on an axis. A reclassification signal records a move between two such cells, and carries the axis and the prior and new values.

In the graph

In the Unified Product Graph a competitor signal lives in the Market Intelligence region and is emitted by its competitor via competitor_emits_competitor_signalCompetitoremitsCompetitor Signalhierarchy. It links to the feature it concerns via competitor_signal_maps_to_featureCompetitor Signalmaps toFeaturecross-domain when a move targets a specific capability💪CapabilityStrategyAn ability that enables value deliveryView reference →, and to an opportunity🚪OpportunityDiscoveryA validated gap worth solvingView reference → via competitor_signal_surfaces_opportunityCompetitor SignalsurfacesOpportunitycross-domain when a move opens a gap. Reclassification signals additionally carry competitor🥊CompetitorMarket IntelligenceA competing product or companyView reference →, axis, from_value, and to_value, mirroring the superseded and new classify edges, which is what lets diff_classification reconstruct a competitor’s movement across an axis over time.