How to Research Your Competitors with Codex

Competitive research is one of those tasks that everyone knows they should do more often but nobody has time for. Codex connected to AgentPatch can run a full research pass from the terminal — Google Search, Google News, and Google Trends in one session.

Why This Matters

If you’re building a product or running a sales team, knowing what competitors are doing informs every decision: pricing, positioning, feature priorities, outreach messaging. The problem is that manual research takes time and goes stale fast.

Codex can run a structured competitive analysis on demand. Search for competitors, check their recent news, compare trend data, and output everything in a format you can pipe into your workflow.

Setup

Add AgentPatch to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.agentpatch]
url = "https://agentpatch.ai/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "AGENTPATCH_API_KEY"

Then set your API key:

export AGENTPATCH_API_KEY=your_api_key

Replace your_api_key with your actual key from the AgentPatch dashboard. Codex discovers all AgentPatch tools automatically on next start.

The Workflow

Step 1: Scan Competitor Web Presence

Tell Codex who to research:

“Search Google for ‘FreshBooks accounting software’ and ‘Wave accounting software’. For each, find their homepage, check for recent product updates or blog posts, and summarize their current positioning.”

Codex calls Google Search for each competitor and returns a structured comparison.

Step 2: Check Recent News

“Search Google News for FreshBooks and Wave over the last 30 days. Surface any product launches, funding announcements, or reviews.”

Codex calls the News tool and surfaces recent coverage you might have missed.

“Compare Google Trends data for ‘FreshBooks’ vs ‘Wave accounting’ over the past 12 months. Show me which is growing and any seasonal patterns.”

Codex returns the trajectory data so you can see who’s gaining mindshare.

Putting It All Together

Run the full analysis in one shot:

“Run a competitive analysis on FreshBooks, Wave, and Zoho Books. For each: search Google for their website and latest updates, check Google News for the past month, and compare all three on Google Trends for the past year. Output a structured summary.”

=== FreshBooks ===
Website: freshbooks.com — launched new invoicing feature Feb 2026
News: TechCrunch mention (Feb 12) — "FreshBooks doubles down on freelancer market"
Trends: Stable, slight uptick in January (tax season)

=== Wave ===
Website: waveapps.com — no blog updates since November 2025
News: No significant coverage in past 30 days
Trends: Declining since September 2025

=== Zoho Books ===
Website: zoho.com/books — active blog, 4 posts in February
News: Featured in G2 "Best Accounting Software 2026" roundup
Trends: Steady growth, now matching FreshBooks in search volume

Takeaways:
- FreshBooks is active but focused narrowly on freelancers. Opportunity if you serve
  small teams.
- Wave is quiet. Declining trends + no content = possible vulnerability.
- Zoho is the one to watch. Growing search interest and active content strategy.

That’s a competitive brief you can share with your team or use to adjust your own positioning.

Wrapping Up

Codex with AgentPatch turns competitive research into a terminal command. Google Search, News, and Trends are three tools on the marketplace — the same connection also gives you Maps, email, image generation, and more. See everything at agentpatch.ai.

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