As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a competitor matrix for your UK business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a document or spreadsheet and write your business name, UK market, target customer, offer, current price, main strengths and weaknesses.
   2. List the competitors you want to compare and paste the website URL for each one, removing businesses that do not serve the same customer or market.
   3. Choose the comparison criteria that matter to your decision, such as price, target customer, offer, features, service area, distribution and positioning.
   4. Paste the business details, competitor list, URLs and criteria into an AI chatbot with the supplied prompt, then ask it to produce the matrix with a source URL and date checked for each factual claim.
   5. Open each cited competitor page and compare its current wording, prices and features with the corresponding cells, changing unsupported claims to "not verified".
   6. Add missing competitors, criteria or evidence that the first draft overlooked, then ask the AI to regenerate the table without removing your corrections.
   7. Write a separate decision note stating which strategic choice the matrix informs, which assumptions remain untested and what customer or competitor research you will do next.

   Prompt

   Create a competitor matrix for my UK business using only the information I provide or sources you can cite.
   
   Business:
   - Business name: [name]
   - What we sell: [product or service]
   - Target customers: [customer segment]
   - UK region or market served: [market]
   - Our current price and main offer: [details]
   - Our main strengths and weaknesses: [details]
   
   Competitors to assess:
   [list competitor names and their websites]
   
   Compare them using these criteria:
   [pricing, target customer, core offer, key features, service area, distribution, strengths, weaknesses, positioning, evidence of customer appeal]
   
   Use a table with one row per competitor and one column per criterion. Add a separate column for the source URL and the date checked for every factual claim. Distinguish clearly between verified facts, reasonable inferences and unknowns. Do not invent prices, features, market shares, reviews or customer opinions. If a source is unavailable or ambiguous, write "not verified" rather than filling the gap. Flag information that may have changed and list the five most important checks I should complete myself. Finish with a short section called "What this does not prove" explaining which strategic conclusions cannot be drawn from this matrix alone.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.