Interacting with Generative Search

Get answers and insights using natural language with Generative Search

• Generative Search Technology
• Define your Search Parameters
  • Select Specific Documents
  • Select Companies, Watchlists, Industries
  • Select Content Types
• Write an Effective Prompt
• Review the Response
  • Research Plan
  • Response & Citations
• Share, Provide Feedback & Regenerate a Response
• Continue the Conversation
  • Related Questions
  • Ask a Follow Up Question
  • Highlight to Ask or Verify
• Additional Generative Search Functionality
  • Company Search 
  • Workflow Agents 
  • Slide Builder
• FAQs

Generative Search Technology

Generative Search is an AI-powered research system that helps you answer complex business and financial questions through a conversational interface. It retrieves and reasons across hundreds of millions of trusted qualitative and quantitative data points including filings, transcripts, sell-side research, expert interviews, financials, and other structured and unstructured sources to deliver clear insights, whether you need a quick answer or deep analysis.

Behind the Scenes of Generative Search

When you enter a query, Generative Search analyzes your request and creates a research plan, much like a lead analyst would. It coordinates multiple specialized agents to gather and synthesize information from trusted sources. The result is a structured, fully cited deliverable, such as a report, table, or slide deck, customized to your needs.

Define your Search Parameters

Start by setting your scope. Choose the companies, industries, document types, and sources you want to focus on, this helps tailor the system to your specific research needs. Once you've defined your parameters, you're ready to ask your question. 

Note: You do not have to define your search parameters to interact with Generative Search. Simply ask a question and Generative Search will get to work.

To select specific documents to analyze:

• Click Select Docs in the search bar.
• Use the Document Selector menu to define your universe using parameters such as company, watchlists, industries, keywords, tags, timeframe, integration points, and content sources.
• Click the + icon to add individual documents or click the Add to select all.
• Click Done.

Note: Selecting documents before entering a query opens a Workspace, where you can perform deeper, more focused analysis. Learn how to interact with Workspaces for advanced research workflows.

To search a specific company, watchlist, or industry: 

• Click the Globe (World) icon in the search bar.
• Type in a company name, or
• Select a recent watchlist or industry from the menu

Note: To search across multiple companies, it's recommended to use a watchlist. If you choose not to use a watchlist, you must search for and add each company individually. 

To search specific content types:

• Click Sources in the search bar.
• Use the checkboxes to select or deselect the content sets you want to include.
• Click View All Sources to open the full Sources menu, where you can search and filter content with greater precision.

Write an Effective Prompt

A well-structured prompt helps Generative Search deliver more accurate, relevant, and usable results. Use the following best practices to improve the quality of your outputs.

Include Key Elements in Your Prompt

1. Role: Define the perspective you want the assistant to take (e.g., equity analyst, strategy consultant, risk manager).
2. Context: Provide background information, such as the company, industry, or specific event.
3. Objective: State what you're trying to accomplish, identify trends, compare strategies, summarize findings, etc.
4. Examples or Specifications: If applicable, list examples, categories, or any known data points to guide the response.
5. Instructions: Clarify formatting needs (e.g., use a table, group findings by theme, rank by relevance).

Use Clear Question Structure

• Be specific: Don’t just input keywords or company names. Ask full, well-formed questions that explain what you need.
• Guide the output: If you want the answer in a particular format (such as a table, list, or hierarchy), say so in your prompt. This is called output engineering.
• Adjust the timeframe: By default, the system looks at the past 12 months. If you need a different range, include that in your prompt (e.g., "since January 2022" or "from the last 3 months").

Example Prompt

This prompt includes the role, context, objective, instructions for format, and a defined timeframe, all in a single, clear request.

To explore more prompt engineering strategies, read our guide to AlphaSense Prompt Engineering Best Practices.

Review the Response

After you submit a question to Generative Search, you’ll see your original question and its Research Plan, cited source content, a concise summary or conclusion, and suggested follow-up questions.

Research Plan

Generative Search interprets your question like an analyst, creates a research plan, and coordinates specialized agents to retrieve the most relevant qualitative and quantitative data from AlphaSense.

Use the Research Plan arrow to view the sequence of steps required to complete your query. 

Response & Citations

Responses are organized into a clear overview of the major takeaways from your question, making it easy to quickly understand the most important insights.

To review previously created prompts and responses, select a prompt/question from the left-hand toolbar under Threads.

Each summarized insight includes direct citations to the source material it was generated from. Select any summary to open the source document, where the relevant passage is highlighted. This allows you to validate findings, explore underlying sources, and continue researching without losing context.

For some queries, a Conclusion or Summary may also be included to highlight the most important findings.

Share, Provide Feedback & Regenerate a Response

At the end of the response, you can choose to generate a new answer, share the summary, or provide feedback if the response was unhelpful.

Share responses

Easily share insights wherever you need them. Copy the response to your clipboard to paste into documents or presentations, or send it directly to a Note in AlphaSense using the Note icon.

Provide feedback

If a response doesn’t meet your needs, you can mark it as Unhelpful to share feedback and help improve future results.

Generate a new response

You can generate a new response to your original question if you’d like to see a fresh answer. 

This is useful when:

• You want additional summaries or perspectives to reference
• The response didn’t fully address your question, and rephrasing the original question isn’t necessary

Continue the Conversation

Generative Search makes it easy to continue researching without starting over.

Related questions

At the bottom of a response, you’ll see suggested related questions. Select any of these to quickly ask a follow-up based on your original prompt, or use them as inspiration to explore new angles.

Ask a follow-up

You can also type a follow-up question directly into the chat bar to refine or expand your research while keeping the full context of your original question.

Highlight to ask or verify

Highlight any text in the response to quickly ask a follow-up question or verify a specific claim. This lets you dive deeper into the details that matter most without breaking your research flow.

Additional Generative Search Functionality

Beyond answering questions, Generative Search connects you to additional tools that help you move from insight to action, whether that’s exploring a company in more detail, automating multi-step research, or turning insights into presentation-ready slides.

Company Search

Quickly jump to a company’s Company Profile by entering a company name or ticker in the Generative Search bar. Explore key details, recent activity, and supporting source documents, making it easy to switch between broad research and detailed company analysis.

Learn more about how to leverage Company Profiles.

Workflow Agents

Use Workflow Agents to automate multi-step research workflows directly from your original question. Agents apply structured analysis to deliver consistent, repeatable outputs. 

Launch familiar agents from the Generative Search homepage in just a few clicks to create company primers, industry analyses, comparisons, or build your own custom agents to support your specific workflows.

Learn more about use, build, and schedule Workflow Agents.

Slide Builder

Slide Builder helps you turn Generative Search insights into presentation-ready content in just a few clicks. 

Generate slides directly from your search response, automatically structure insights into clear, executive-ready slides, and export them to share with stakeholders or include in reports and presentations.

FAQs

What content does Generative Search use?

• Generative Search reviews all content available in your AlphaSense account, including any internal content you have integrated. This includes both proprietary and public documents that your access level permits.

How does Generative Search handle complex questions?

• Generative Search handles complex questions by breaking them down into a series of smaller, structured tasks using a multi-agent research system. When a user submits a query, an orchestrator (or lead agent) interprets the question and decomposes it into actionable steps. These steps are then assigned to specialized sub-agents designed to work with different data types and analytical tasks.
• For example, for a query such as “Explain the rationale behind the top five AI M&A transactions last year,” Generative Search may:
  • Instruct a quantitative sub-agent to identify the top five AI-related M&A transactions over the specified time period using structured deal and financial data.
  • Direct a document search sub-agent to retrieve relevant filings, press releases, earnings transcripts, and research covering each transaction.
  • Assign an analysis sub-agent to extract and compare stated deal rationales, strategic themes, and financial context across sources.
  • Use a synthesis agent to combine these findings into a coherent, structured response.

What should I do if Generative Search didn’t answer my question?

• Generate a new answer: Click the option at the bottom of the response to rerun the same query.
• Rephrase your question: If the answer focused on the wrong companies, topics, or document types:
  • Be more specific (e.g., include company tickers or clearer terms).
  • Avoid ambiguous keywords (e.g., “space” could refer to aerospace or market segments).
  • Start a new session by selecting “Clear Chat” or launching Gen Search from a filtered AlphaSense search to target specific content.

Why didn’t Generative Search produce an answer?

• If no answer is provided, it may be due to one of the following:
  • No relevant content found: Gen Search will say so, instead of fabricating a response.
  • Insufficient context: Try rewording your question for clarity or specificity.
  • Content availability: Check if documents exist by using the classic AlphaSense search.