Custom and Scheduled Workflow Agents

Automate Repetitive Research with Custom Workflows Agents

• What are Custom & Scheduled Agents
• How to Create a Custom Agent
  • Step 1: Identify the Task You Repeat Often
  • Step 2: Create a New Custom Agent
  • Step 3: Write Prompt Instructions
    • Dynamic Prompting with Custom Agents
  • Step 4: Run and Reuse the Agent
• Create an Agent with One Click from Generative Search
• How to Schedule an Agent
• How to Share an Agent
• Organizational Agents
• FAQs

What are Custom & Scheduled Workflow Agents?

Custom agents let you build personalized, repeatable workflows that meet your exact research or task needs. Unlike standard workflows, custom agents give you full control so you can fine-tune the prompts, inputs, and logic so you can conduct hyper-specific research.

Scheduled agents take this one step further by automating the entire process. You can set them to run at specific times, ensuring you get the right information exactly when you need it without having to manually trigger anything.

While our pre-built AlphaSense Agents provide a helpful starting point, custom and scheduled agents offer the flexibility to go beyond common use cases and create solutions tailored to your evolving business needs.

How to Create a Custom Workflow Agent for Repetitive Research Tasks

If you regularly perform the same type of research, like gathering company leadership bios for potential acquisitions or partnerships, you can save time by creating a custom agent with dynamic prompts. This lets you get updated information without having to rewrite or re-enter the same prompt each time.

Step 1: Identify the Task You Repeat Often

Think about tasks you regularly complete using similar queries or steps. For example, you might often need to:

• Gather leadership bios for different companies
• Research product overviews across competitors
• Compile funding histories for investment reviews

Step 2: Create a New Custom Agent

• Open Generative Search.
• Go to the Custom Agents section.
• Click +New Agent.

Name your agent, for example, “Leadership Bio Generator”.

Step 3: Write Prompt Instructions

• Input a Title for the Agent (and a Description)
• Type your prompt in the Instructions box.
  • For example: Find the current leadership team and short professional bios for Pepsico. Return results in bullet points.
  • Optional: Use pencil icon to enhance instructions and have our Generative Search refine your prompts and optimize outputs.
• You can optionally refine your search to increase precision and relevance:
  • Use the @ icon to filter by specific companies, watchlists, or industries.
  • Use the All Sources dropdown to narrow results by content type.
  • Select the appropriate search mode — Auto, Think Longer, or Deep Research — based on the complexity and depth of analysis you need.
• Click Save Agent.

Dynamic Prompting with Custom Agents

You can use variables in Custom Agent prompts for inputs that may change each time the agent is run.

Instead of adding fixed details directly into the prompt, use placeholders such as {company}, {industry}, {theme}, or {region}. When someone runs the agent, AlphaSense will ask them to fill in those details before completing the workflow.

This allows you to reuse the same Custom Agent across different companies, industries, themes, regions, or research scenarios without rewriting the prompt each time.

Note: When creating a custom agent with dynamic variables, you can also use the @ symbol to reference specific companies or watchlists. This makes it immediately clear which inputs will be requested when the agent runs

For example, instead of writing:

Summarize the latest market trends impacting PepsiCo in North America.

You could write:

Summarize the latest market trends impacting {company} in {region}.

When the agent runs, the user will be prompted to enter the company and region. AlphaSense will then use those inputs to complete the search as if they were included in the original prompt.

Step 4: Run and Reuse the Agent

• Open your custom agent from the Generative Search homepage under My Agents.
• Run the agent to get updated, formatted results instantly.

You can reuse this same workflow across projects, eliminating the need to rewrite prompts or repeat research steps.

You can also access and run your Custom Agents from the AlphaSense mobile app. The app includes your full Custom Agent Library, and you will receive a push notification when an agent completes its task. 

Tip: To automate this further, consider using a Scheduled Agent to run the workflow regularly, like every week or month, so you always have the latest information.

Create an Agent with One Click from Generative Search

Alternatively, after running a Generative Search query, you can select Create Agent at the bottom of the response. A popup will open with your original prompt automatically carried over, making it easy to turn your search into a reusable agent in just one click.

How to Schedule a Custom Agent

You can schedule a custom agent to run automatically on a regular basis, so you receive timely results without manually running prompts each time. Currently, users can have up to 10 scheduled agents.

To schedule a custom agent:

• Create a new custom agent or open an existing one.
• In the Title field, enter a name (e.g., Semiconductor Report).
• In the Prompt field, write your instructions.
• Under Email Schedule, set your preferred timing (None, Daily, Weekly, Monthly)
  • (e.g., Weekly → Friday → 12:00 PM - 2:00PM).
• Click Save Agent.

The agent will run on your chosen schedule, and you'll receive the results by email. 

Note: These agents are proactive, running at set intervals, but they do not send alerts in real time when new information is added. For that, use manual search or alerts.

Agents leveraging Deep Research can only be scheduled weekly at this time.

How to Share a Custom Agent

You can share a Custom Agent with colleagues, enabling you and your team to scale best practices by turning expertise into a reusable, standardized workflow. This helps ensure consistent outputs, saves time on repeat research tasks, and allows others to leverage proven prompts and logic without rebuilding them from scratch.

To share a custom agent:

• Navigate to My Agents and select the existing Agent you would like to share.
• Select the three dots (⋯) in the top-right corner of the Agent tile.
• Click Send a Copy.
• Enter the recipient’s name.
• (Optional) Choose whether to notify the recipient by selecting or clearing the notification checkbox.
• Add an additional message if desired.
• Select Send to share the Agent.

Organizational Agents

Organizational Agents allow your team to create standardized, custom Workflow Agents that can be used across your entire organization. These agents appear under a new “My Organization” tab within the Workflow Agents section.

How Organizational Agents Work

Organizational Agents function similarly to AlphaSense Library Agents, with a few key differences:

• View-only access: Users can run Organizational Agents but cannot edit them
• No scheduling (yet): Scheduling is not currently supported for Organizational Agents
• Centralized management: Agents are created and maintained by designated administrators through AlphaSense

Organizational Agents introduce a scalable, consistent foundation for AI-driven research. This allows your organization to:

• Guarantee consistency at scale: Standardize your most critical analysis across your entire organization and get the same high-quality results across all team members. 
• Get faster results from your teams: Eliminate the prompting learning curve and get faster, actionable results from every team member. 
• Scale expertise: Accelerate your competitive edge and boost institutional knowledge with codified search logic. 

Note: If you’re interested in creating an organizational library, please reach out to your Account Representative for assistance.
 

Ready to automate your research?

Take this course in AlphaDemics to learn how AlphaSense Workflow Agents, Custom Agents, and Scheduled Agents turn manual searching into scalable, intelligent workflows—so you can deliver faster, more confident decisions.

FAQs

Can I schedule Pre-Built AlphaSense Agents?

• No. Scheduling is only available for Custom Agents. 

Can I schedule a workflow from our existing library of Workflow Agents?

• No. Workflow agents in the library cannot be scheduled — if you want to schedule one of the workflows in the library, you will have to recreate it as a custom workflow.

Can I choose what formatting my custom agent will display information in (slide, report, grid)? 

• Yes. To create a custom agent with a specific format, you will need to start with a traditional Gen Search, then ask for the format you want in natural language, and once that’s resolved click on “Save Agent.”

Can I share custom agents I built for users or can my users share custom agents with their colleagues?

• Yes. Sharing agents is now available within your organization.

Are there any known limitations to custom and scheduled workflows? 

• There is no limit to the number of custom agents you can create in AlphaSense.
• There is a limit on how many agents you can schedule. You can have up to 10 scheduled agents at a time, regardless of mode. 
• Deep Research can only be set on a weekly schedule.

What time zone are my scheduled agents delivered in?

• Your scheduled agents are delivered in the time zone set in your account settings.
• By default, the system uses the time zone configured under your account.

If you need to change your time zone:

• Select your profile icon in the bottom-right corner.
• Click Account.
• Select General.
• Under Alert Timezones, choose your preferred time zone.

After you update this setting, all scheduled agents will follow the new time zone.