AI Prospect Research Agent

Your next sales call shouldn't start with "So, tell me about your company." It should start with something that makes them think: "How did you know that?"

This Actor turns a name and company into a full intelligence brief — background, recent moves, pain points, communication style, and a personalized outreach message ready to send.

Stop Googling prospects for 20 minutes each. Let AI do the research in 10 seconds.

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What makes this different

Most lead tools on Apify scrape contact info — emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn URLs.

This one thinks.

It doesn't just find your prospect. It tells you what they care about, what keeps them up at night, what they've been posting about, and exactly what to say to get a response.

The difference between a cold email that gets deleted and one that gets a reply? Research. This Actor does the research.

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What you get per prospect

• Background — career history, role, company overview
• Recent activity — what they've been doing, saying, posting, launching
• Strategic priorities — what they're focused on right now
• Pain points — likely challenges and frustrations
• Communication style — formal vs. casual, data-driven vs. narrative
• Outreach angles — 2-5 specific approaches with reasoning for each
• Ice breakers — 3 conversation starters that reference real details
• Ready-to-send message — a personalized cold email or LinkedIn DM
• Confidence level — how confident the AI is in its research
• Research gaps — what it couldn't determine (so you know where to dig)

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Pricing

$0.25 per prospect researched. No subscription. No monthly fee.

Use case	Prospects	Cost
Test it out	1 prospect	$0.25
Prep for a sales meeting	5 prospects	$1.25
Weekly outreach batch	25 prospects	$6.25
Agency client campaign	100 prospects	$25.00

Compare: a human researcher spends 15-30 minutes per prospect. At $25/hour, that is $6-12 per prospect. This Actor does it for $0.25.

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4 output styles

Style	Best for	What it emphasizes
Outreach Brief	Cold email, LinkedIn DMs	Conversation starters, personalization hooks
Sales Intelligence	Discovery calls, demos	Budget signals, decision authority, pain points
Investor Memo	Fundraising, pitch prep	Market position, growth signals, investment readiness
Partnership Pitch	Strategic partnerships	Complementary strengths, mutual value, shared audiences

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3 research depths

Depth	Speed	Detail	Best for
Quick	~5 sec	Key facts + 1 angle	High-volume outreach
Standard	~10 sec	Full brief + personalized message	Sales prep
Deep	~20 sec	Comprehensive dossier + multi-angle strategy	Enterprise deals, VIP prospects

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How to use it

Step 1: Add your prospects

[
    {"name": "Sarah Chen", "company": "Stripe"},
    {"name": "Marcus Johnson", "company": "HubSpot", "role": "VP of Marketing"},
    {"name": "Lisa Park", "company": "Notion", "notes": "Met at SaaStr 2025"}
]

Step 2: Tell it about you

In the "Your Context" field, describe what you do: "We build AI-powered content tools for marketing teams" — this lets the AI tailor outreach angles to your specific offering.

Step 3: Pick your depth and style

Quick for volume. Standard for most use cases. Deep for the deals that matter.

Step 4: Get your briefs

Each prospect returns a structured JSON object with everything you need to write a message that actually gets a response.

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Sample output

{
    "prospect_name": "Sarah Chen",
    "title_role": "Head of Developer Experience",
    "company": "Stripe",
    "company_overview": "Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform serving millions of businesses...",
    "background": "Sarah joined Stripe in 2022 after leading developer relations at...",
    "recent_activity": "Recently spoke at DevX Conf about reducing API integration time...",
    "strategic_priorities": "Expanding Stripe's developer ecosystem, reducing time-to-first-transaction...",
    "pain_points": "Developer onboarding friction, competing with emerging fintech APIs...",
    "communication_style": "Technical but accessible. Prefers data-backed arguments. Active on Twitter...",
    "outreach_angles": [
        {
            "angle": "Reference her DevX Conf talk on integration speed",
            "reasoning": "Shows you follow her work and care about the same problems"
        },
        {
            "angle": "Share a relevant case study about developer tool adoption",
            "reasoning": "Provides immediate value and positions you as a peer"
        }
    ],
    "ice_breakers": [
        "Your DevX Conf talk on reducing integration time from days to hours resonated...",
        "I noticed Stripe just launched the new embedded components SDK...",
        "A mutual connection mentioned your team is rethinking onboarding flows..."
    ],
    "outreach_message": "Hi Sarah — your DevX Conf talk on cutting integration time stuck with me...",
    "confidence_level": "high",
    "research_gaps": "Could not determine current team size or specific Q2 priorities"
}

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Who this is for

• SDRs and BDRs — stop sending generic "I noticed your company..." emails
• Founders doing their own outreach — punch above your weight with Fortune 500 research
• Recruiting teams — personalize candidate outreach that actually gets responses
• Agency account managers — prep for client pitches with real intelligence
• BD and partnerships — know exactly what to propose and why they'd care
• Investors — research portfolio companies and potential deals

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Supported languages

English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), German, French, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean.

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API key setup

This Actor requires your own AI provider API key. Your key is encrypted and never stored.

Claude (Anthropic) — recommended for research quality:

1. Go to console.anthropic.com
2. Create an account and add credits
3. Paste your API key in the input field

GPT (OpenAI):

1. Go to platform.openai.com
2. Create an account and add credits
3. Paste your API key in the input field

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FAQ

How much does each lookup cost in AI API fees? Roughly $0.005-0.03 per prospect depending on depth and provider. A batch of 20 standard-depth lookups typically costs under $0.40 in API fees on top of the per-prospect charge.

How accurate is the research? The AI uses its training knowledge, which covers public figures, executives, and well-known companies well. For lesser-known individuals, accuracy depends on their public footprint. Every brief includes a confidence level and research gaps field so you know what to verify.

Can I research anyone? The AI works best with people who have a public professional presence — LinkedIn activity, conference talks, published articles, press coverage. For very private individuals with minimal online footprint, the research will be limited (and the confidence level will reflect that).

Can I run this on a schedule? Yes. Set up an Apify schedule to research new prospects weekly. Combine with webhooks to send briefs to Slack, email, or your CRM automatically.

Can I upload a CSV of prospects? Not directly in this version. Format your CSV data as a JSON array and paste it into the input field. CSV upload coming in a future update.

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Integrations

Export your research briefs to:

• Google Sheets — via Apify's native integration
• Zapier / Make / n8n — trigger workflows when research is complete
• Slack — get prospect briefs delivered to a channel before meetings
• HubSpot / Salesforce — enrich CRM records with AI research
• CSV / JSON / Excel — download directly from the dataset

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Related Actors

• AI Social Media Content Generator — generate a week of social posts in 60 seconds

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Changelog

• 1.0 (2026-04-09) — Initial release: prospect research with 3 depths, 4 output styles, 9 languages, Claude + GPT support, personalized outreach messages

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Built by Jungle Wiz — AI-powered research and automation tools.