AI lead research reads Companies House and the prospect's website, then writes its findings onto the lead as research notes covering what will drive the fee, what to watch out for, and what to ask before quoting.
Research runs on demand, per lead. Nothing is sent to the client, and nothing on the lead record is changed from the information found.
AI lead research is included with the Leads add-on module for UK practices.
Running research on a lead
Open the lead and find the Lead Research card in the summary column, then select Run Research. The agent works through the company record at Companies House and the prospect's website.
Reading the research notes
Research opens as Research notes, with counts across the top for facts, pricing signals, flags, and questions.
What's included in the Lead research
The summary
A short description of the company: incorporation, registered address, SIC classification, and anything notable in recent filings.
What will drive the fee
Pricing signals as a table of the signal, the detail behind it, and its source. Signals cover things such as recent dormant filings, upcoming compliance deadlines, officer changes, and registered charges.
The business
The registry facts: registered office, status, company type, incorporation date, nature of business (SIC), next accounts date, and next confirmation statement date.
Where no company could be matched, this section reads "No registry facts were captured for this run."
What's worth knowing before you quote
The research flags the agent raised, each tagged with where it came from. Tags include Companies House, Filing History, Charges Register, Lead Record, Website, and Inferred.
Ask them this
Questions to put to the prospect, each with a line explaining what the answer would establish. Questions are generated from what the agent could not verify, so a run with poor registry data produces more of them.
Where this came from
Every source the agent used, with what each one contributed. Where a source failed, this section says so: an unreachable website or an inconclusive company-name search is recorded rather than passed over.
The audit trail
A bar at the foot of the research notes records how many tool calls the agent made, across how many phases, and how long the run took. The reasoning trace and source breakdown are saved to the lead.
Open as companion view opens the notes alongside the lead. How is this agent doing? records feedback on the run.
When the company cannot be matched
Where Companies House returns no confident match, research still runs, using the lead record and the website derived from the contact's email domain.
In that case the registry sections are empty, the closest candidate companies are named in Where this came from, and the first question under Ask them this asks the prospect to confirm their registration number and registered legal name.
An unreachable website is treated the same way: the flag records that the site could not be read, and a question is raised to confirm the correct address.