Innovation Radar — Field Trends & Idea Validation

Point it at a technology field or describe a product idea, and get an analysis instead of a pile of links:

• Field landscape — how much is published per year, how fast it is growing (and whether it's speeding up or cooling down), which countries, institutions and funders lead it, which sub-topics are rising, the standout recent work, and related patents.
• Idea validation — how many works already cover the idea, how many in the last two years, whether the space is open, early, active or crowded, the biggest neighbouring space (so a niche inside a crowded field is called out), who is working on it, the closest prior work, and related patents.
• Scores you can compare — an opportunity score (0–100) with the reasons behind it, plus momentum, lab-to-market gap (research racing ahead of products) and geographic concentration. Analyse several fields in one run and they come back ranked.
• Who is in it — industry participation (share of recent work with a company author, and whether companies are moving in or out), the top companies, key researchers, institutions and funders: partners, hires, licensors and competitors.
• Opportunities (optional AI) — product ideas with why now, a capital bucket (under $50k / $50k–$1M / over $1M) with the reasoning, who to talk to, risks and next steps. Use Apify's built-in AI (no key, billed to your Apify account) or your own Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Groq, Mistral, DeepSeek or local model.

Every run also saves a readable report (Markdown) and an AI brief: the analyst rubric plus the run's evidence, ready to paste into any assistant you already use.

Built for founders looking for what to build, R&D and innovation teams scouting a technology, investors and consultants sizing a field, IP professionals, and AI agents that need a quick read on a domain.

How to use it

Landscape: choose Analyse fields, enter one or more fields (solid state battery, CRISPR base editing, retrieval augmented generation), press Start.

Validation: choose Validate ideas, describe each idea in a sentence (a window that generates solar power with perovskite tandem cells), press Start.

Turn on AI insight for opportunities and an assessment written for you. Apify (no key) runs the model through Apify's AI gateway, billed to your Apify account; with your own key you pay your provider directly. The Actor charges nothing extra for AI either way.

{
  "mode": "landscape",
  "fields": ["solid state battery", "sodium-ion battery"],
  "years": 10
}

Output

Landscape record: field, rank (when several fields), scores ({opportunity, momentum, labToMarketGap, geographicConcentration, why}), industry ({recentShare, trend}), topCompanies, keyResearchers, reviewShare, worksPerYear ([{year, works}]), growth ({cagrPercent, lastTwoYearsVsPreviousTwoPercent, stage}), topCountries, topInstitutions, topFunders, topTopics, risingTopics ({topic, recentWorks, shareLift}), standoutRecentWorks (title, venue, date, citations, first author, institution, link), relatedPatents (number, title, applicants, filing date, likelyExpiredByTerm), insight (with an AI key).

Validation record: idea, searchedFor, matchingWorks, worksLastTwoYears, crowdedness, broaderSpace and position (e.g. open niche in a crowded field: the application is new, the base technology is busy), growth, worksPerYear, closestWorks, whoIsWorkingOnIt (researchers, institutions, companies), relatedPatents, insight (novelty, closest prior work, feasible now because…, capital, risks, next steps).

The key-value store holds REPORT — the same results as a document you can read or share — and AI_BRIEF.

Example: three battery chemistries, one run

fields: ["sodium-ion battery", "solid state battery", "perovskite solar cell"] ranked sodium-ion first (opportunity 79: fast growth, a wide lab-to-market gap, companies such as CATL and Faradion moving in), solid-state second (62) and perovskite third (46). Each score lists the signals behind it.

Use your own AI, or none

The analysis — counts, trends, scores, companies — needs no AI at all. For the written part you have three options:

1. AI insight in the Actor — Apify (no key) or any supported provider on your key.
2. AI_BRIEF — paste it into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot or a local model. Every model gets the same rubric and answer shape, so results stay comparable.
3. From an AI agent — the webdata-tools MCP server exposes analyze_field and validate_idea plus ready-made field-opportunity-analysis and idea-validation prompts for Claude Desktop, Cursor and other MCP clients.

Data

Scholarly data from OpenAlex (250M+ works, CC0) and patent records from Europe PMC. Coming next: free-to-use patents (expired, or lapsed early because fees weren't paid) and patent filing trends from the USPTO and EPO.

Pricing

$0.03 per analysis (one field or one idea) plus a small start fee per run. AI insight is billed by Apify's AI gateway or your own provider at their prices. A free OpenAlex key is recommended for frequent runs.

Good to know

Trends reflect published research, which leads products by years. Patent notes are not legal advice: an expired patent can have related patents still in force — check before building. AI notes are estimates.