Research is mostly groundwork: finding sources, reading them, pulling out the useful parts and putting them side by side. AI agents can do a lot of that collection and first-pass analysis quickly, leaving people with the part that needs judgment.
The cases in this guide are real examples of agents helping with research and data work: literature reviews, market research, data cleaning, spreadsheet analysis and report drafting. Each one links to the public post it came from.
Good results depend on checking the agent's work. People who use agents for research well ask for sources with every claim, spot-check a few of them, and treat the output as a strong first draft rather than the final word.
Browse the cases below, pick one close to your own question, and adapt its prompt. Ask the agent to show where each finding came from. The list is ordered by interest.
What is in this guide: 60 sourced cases, added between 2026-10-15 and 2026-10-15. The tools that come up most often are Claude Code (14), Custom agent (12), ChatGPT Agent (8), and the cases mostly sit under Research & Data (60). They were reported on Reddit (22), X (15), Blog (13). If you only have a few minutes, start with the top three: “Speed up multifamily deal research and property summaries”; “Investigate papers overnight”; “Research laptops and build a comparison table and deck”.
Each case page gives a short summary in our own words, a note on why it matters, a reusable prompt broken into steps you can follow, and a link to the original first-hand account. Nothing here is a paid placement, and we only list cases with a working public source.
60 real cases, most interesting first
Speed up multifamily deal research and property summaries· Custom agent · Research & Data Real-world thread: the broker says AI is most useful before outreach and during early diligence: they use it to pull together market research…
Investigate papers overnight· Grok Bot · Research & Data A published walkthrough shows as described in the source: working as people sleep, Grok Bot jobs are responsible for reading new papers, extract…
Research laptops and build a comparison table and deck· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data One practitioner notes that in ChatGPT's agent mode, the reviewer asked it to research the best budget laptops, compare specs, and send back a…
Run web research jobs and capture screenshots into a doc· Operator · Research & Data Observed in the wild: the reviewer paid $200 for ChatGPT Operator and spent a week giving it plain-language browser tasks. These included analyzing…
Research and buy online· Grok Bot · Research & Data Real-world thread: as described in the source: through the use of Stripe Link, Grok Bot investigates options and creates orders, displaying a spend…
Grade papers and build lesson plans for teachers· ChatGPT · Research & Data Linked example of grade papers and build lesson plans for teachers. The builder assembled a proof-of-concept app called Archimedes, described as a…
Draft lesson plans and school paperwork for teachers· ChatGPT · Research & Data Real-world thread: a teacher used ChatGPT as an administrative assistant for lesson sequences, reflections, PowerPoints, programs, assessment…
Research purchases for delivered price and working coupons· Custom agent · Research & Data Documented elsewhere: the poster runs this self-hosted on a home server with a Claude subscription. Claude Code orchestrates parallel subagents to…
Run scheduled AI deep research on stock watchlists· Custom agent · Research & Data One practitioner notes that in a comment, the person said they wanted daily and weekly cron jobs to trigger a script that runs AI deep research…
Run a one-person studio's office work· Grok Bot · Research & Data As described in the source, grok Bot shows up in a write-up about run a one-person studio's office work. The linked post is the primary source for…
Grade papers and build lessons· Claude Cowork · Research & Data Classroom workload that used to eat evenings—lesson outlines, paper stacks, slide decks, grade analytics—now gets a big assist from Claude Cowork…
Speed up support ticket research and triage· Zapier Agents · Research & Data According to the write-up, the source is a listing page with only short blurbs, so it has little on mechanics. Corey Smith, a Senior Technical…
Research crypto assets and execute swaps and perps trades· Custom agent · Research & Data Real-world thread: the agent received full access to Someone's portfolio data covering balances, allocations, open positions, entry prices…
Compile an annotated bibliography and draft a paper· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data ChatGPT Agent covered compile an annotated bibliography and draft a paper. The builder gave ChatGPT Agent a single /agent prompt asking for…
Synthesize customer calls into product evidence· Claude Code · Research & Data A product person pipes Fireflies transcripts through Claude Code with Linear and Notion MCP to tally which assumptions customer calls support or kill.
Synthesize interview transcripts and PDFs for research· Claude Code · Research & Data Observed in the wild: transcripts go in one folder, one file per interview with consistent names, plus a CLAUDE.md holding research questions, a…
Research the web visually by browsing pages· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data From the linked report, the commenter says they used ChatGPT Agent Mode as a visual browser rather than a text crawler. It spun up a virtual…
Track competitor prices and contacts into Google Sheets· Claude · Research & Data As described in the source, assembled a scraper that keeps watch on competitor websites hourly and tracks price changes plus pulls product data…
Summarize Reddit threads before writing code· Claude Code · Research & Data According to the write-up, the poster assembled a Reddit MCP server, adds it to Claude Code with one command, and uses it as pre-coding research…
Research stock positions as an AI analyst· Claude Code · Research & Data Observed in the wild: an anonymous operator gave a Claude Code agent (Opus 4.6) a one-line instruction to beat the S&P 500 on a $50,000 real-money…
Write essays with research and section feedback· Claude Code · Research & Data Teresa Torres drafts outlines with Claude Code in VS Code, asks it to improve hooks, add cited research, and review each section as she writes.
Screen research papers against criteria· Codex · Research & Data Linked example of screen research papers against criteria. User installs Codex app, opens a project folder containing PDFs or CSVs, and creates or…
Run systematic literature reviews· Custom agent · Research & Data Observed in the wild: Custom agent was pointed at run systematic literature reviews. suggests a tool for research focused on systematic look over…
Run research workflows· Grok Bot · Research & Data As described in the source, grok Bot shows up in a write-up about run research workflows, with figures like 10. The linked post is the primary…
Run persistent financial research· Claude Code · Research & Data One practitioner notes that claude Code shows up in a write-up about run persistent financial research. The linked post is the primary source for…
Research calendar guests and send a Slack briefing· Zapier Agents · Research & Data Linked example of research calendar guests and send a Slack briefing. The agent is assembled in Zapier with a 6 AM daily schedule trigger and three…
Research and draft a social science paper· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data Observed in the wild: chatGPT Agent shows up in a write-up about research and draft a social science paper. The linked post is the primary source…
Research and download scientific papers· Custom agent · Research & Data According to the write-up, custom agent shows up in a write-up about research and download scientific papers. The linked post is the primary source…
Research US stablecoin adoption· Manus · Research & Data One practitioner notes that following one approval step, a Manus agent connected to Heurist's mesh completed a two-minute investigation on US…
Research Reddit customer pain points· Codex · Research & Data Observed in the wild: codex shows up in a write-up about research Reddit customer pain points. The linked post is the primary source for steps and…
Rebuild a math curriculum into a one-year plan· Claude Code · Research & Data Real-world thread: claude Code shows up in a write-up about rebuild a math curriculum into a one-year plan. The linked post is the primary source…
Produce cited research briefs· Custom agent · Research & Data Real-world thread: custom agent shows up in a write-up about produce cited research briefs. The linked post is the primary source for steps and…
Investigate market moves and alerts· Claude · Research & Data Case study takeaway: claude shows up in a write-up about investigate market moves and alerts. The linked post is the primary source for steps and…
Do equity research· Claude Code · Research & Data Real-world thread: a non-engineer uses Claude Code for equity research and keeps a folder of plain-text files with Obsidian management for his…
Compile genealogy research into a spreadsheet and plan· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data Forum aside: ChatGPT had already spun up her genealogy sheet; the tip was to switch into Agent mode when it’s time to wrangle findings into a clean…
Build presentations and spreadsheets from web research· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data A published walkthrough shows daria Cupareanu Leaned on ChatGPT Agent Mode for three tasks. It assembled an AI-in-education deck from one near-bare…
Orchestrate academic research and writing workflows· Claude Code · Research & Data Case study takeaway: the thread describes people powered by Claude Code less as a software engineer and more as an orchestrator for research work.…
NeoTeo follow-up on the TESS candidate· Claude Code · Research & Data After the Claude Code TESS analysis circulated, observing time was scheduled to test whether predicted transits around TIC 4206066 actually occur.
Mine NASA TESS data for an exoplanet signal· Claude Code · Research & Data An amateur used Claude Code to analyze NASA TESS light curves and flag a candidate signal around TIC 4206066 that later got follow-up observing time.
Automate a day job as an automation engineer· Claude · Research & Data From the linked report, the poster had Claude write a Python script for a contracting job that pulls information from websites, because doing it…
Turn a business website into a WhatsApp support agent· n8n · Research & Data One practitioner notes that an n8n workflow accepts any business URL, scrapes the full site via AI to create a knowledge base, afterward powers a…
Start Skynet Onboarding: Daily Commands (Easter egg)· Skynet (fictional) · Research & Data EASTER EGG / SATIRE: this one is a joke, not a real sighting. Entry 666 of the directory was found blinking ominously at 3am. It claims to be the…
Research stocks by pulling filings and transcripts· Claude Code · Research & Data As described in the source, the poster says they stopped manually downloading and skimming 10-Ks and instead ask Claude Code about a company and…
Create assessments and grade papers for classes· ChatGPT · Research & Data Linked example of create assessments and grade papers for classes. The Reddit post says a co-teacher was powered by ChatGPT to make tests, handouts…
Try Devin on research tasks (mostly failed)· Devin · Research & Data From the linked report, answer.AI gave Devin, which works through Slack in its own Docker environment with a browser, editor and shell, two tasks.…
Research AI training case studies and build a summary deck· ChatGPT Agent · Research & Data Community report: the team gave ChatGPT Agent Mode one prompt: research AI training case studies from McKinsey, PwC and similar firms, then build a…
Survey AI product names· Claude · Research & Data Community report: claude shows up in a write-up about survey AI product names, with figures like 4,654. The linked post is the primary source for…
Produce a sourced research document· Grok Bot · Research & Data From the linked report, as described in the source: and delivered a complete research document in one minute, following grok coordinated 16…
Explore open math problems· Custom agent · Research & Data From the linked report, custom agent covered explore open math problems. a document exploring the use of autonomous mathematical discovery in a…
Turn PDFs and textbooks into interactive courses· Custom agent · Research & Data Linked example of turn PDFs and textbooks into interactive courses. The agent receives a PDF or textbook and parses it, keeping small files in…
Run academic literature reviews from seed papers· Custom agent · Research & Data Real-world thread: the poster made a lightweight agent skill for literature reviews because general chatbots were missing relevant papers and…
Run a systematic literature review from one prompt· Custom agent · Research & Data Real-world thread: user enters the prompt at scispace.com. The agent produces PICO-based research questions and screening criteria for Someone to…
Run a shared team agent for calls, approvals and tasks· Hermes Agent · Research & Data Community report: nikki stood up a shared Hermes Agent named Robert for the buzzdotxyz startup team. It receives access to the team's full Obsidian…
Complete an online survey end to end· Meta Muse · Research & Data A published walkthrough shows the poster says they gave Meta’s Muse a link to one of their surveys and told it to complete the whole thing without…
Generate updated research reports on followed companies· Custom agent · Research & Data As described in the source, the poster said they assembled a stock-research agent on top of paid real-time market-data subscriptions because…