Expert networks have become indispensable tools for businesses and professionals across industries as they offer direct access to expert insights, market intelligence, and real-time data to inform decision-making. These firsthand perspectives are a critical addition to secondary research.
While some expert network platforms focus on expert calls and more traditional offerings, others, like AlphaSense, are equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that enable you to accelerate and streamline your research process. Depending on your research needs, one platform may serve your business better than another.
This guide compares the popular expert network platforms—AlphaSights, AlphaSense, and Third Bridge—analyzing their use cases, strengths, and weaknesses. We also discuss the combined value of the AlphaSense AI-based market intelligence solution and the Tegus platform and how it compares to AlphaSights and Third Bridge.
AlphaSights
AlphaSights is a leading global expert network that connects businesses with industry experts to provide insights and advice for strategic decision-making. AlphaSights provides its clients with information services that help them make better business decisions and deliver outstanding results.
The AlphaSights network of experts is suitable for investment bankers, private investment firms, mutual funds, management consulting firms, corporations, and non-government organizations (NGOs). The platform combines expert network coverage, technology, and compliance to provide business intelligence and analysis to its clients.
The platform focuses primarily on expert consultations, which can be costly and less accessible for smaller companies. Therefore, AlphaSights may not be ideal for small businesses or startups with limited budgets, teams that require comprehensive quantitative data, or organizations seeking automated insights.
Additionally, AlphaSights is primarily geared towards qualitative insights, which may not meet the needs of teams that require detailed quantitative analysis and data-driven decision-making. Organizations seeking more automated insights may find that AlphaSights’ reliance on human expertise does not fully meet their needs.
Pros of AlphaSights
- Large network of industry specialists
- Serves multiple industries and business functions
- Offers expert calls and consultations
Cons of AlphaSights
- Limited to qualitative data
- No advanced AI-powered smart search or sentiment analysis
- No broker research, company documents, or news
- Cannot upload internal content
- No support for integrations or organizations
Researchers appreciate AlphaSights’ flexible research solutions and vast expert network but note the lack of more comprehensive data offerings and additional content sets beyond expert call transcripts, which are essential for comprehensive market research. Moreover, the lengthy scheduling process for expert consultations can be time-consuming.
Third Bridge
Third Bridge is a private research expert network firm that offers unique insights and analysis to asset managers, corporations, and consultants, enabling them to make smarter decisions faster.
Third Bridge uses primary research techniques in its business model, including interviews with industry experts and professionals, to gather information on various companies, industries, and topics.
It primarily facilitates one-on-one consultations and interviews, offering direct access to industry-specific knowledge. These insights help investors make better decisions, assess market opportunities, and develop business strategies.
Third Bridge is largely utilized among investment professionals, consulting firms, and corporate decision-makers who rely on expert opinions for market insights. It’s best suited for those who need real-time access to specialized knowledge and expert calls.
Offering an extensive library of high-quality content for business, investments, and consulting purposes, Third Bridge’s content collection is regularly curated by experienced and talented executives so that you get the latest data and can make informed business decisions with the help of the most trusted perspectives.
Pros of Third Bridge:
- Over 30,000 call transcripts in the Third Bridge Forum library
- Allows clients to conduct one-on-one interviews with experts
- Extensive network of experts across various industries
- Uses a proprietary company ranking model
Cons of Third Bridge:
- Users cannot upload internal content
- Lacks broker research, company documents, and news for holistic market research
- No advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-powered smart search, sentiment analysis, or generative AI capabilities
- Can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses or startups
- Scheduling expert calls can be time-consuming
Overall, Third Bridge excels at providing expert calls and real-time insights from industry specialists for investment researchers who rely solely on primary research to make business decisions.
However, its specialization as an expert network means it lacks the breadth of data and research tools other innovative market intelligence platforms provide, like AlphaSense. This can lead to missed opportunities and blind spots in the research process.
According to Inex One, the Third Bridge pricing model requires a $50k prepayment with an average cost per interview of $1,350 per hour.
For even more information on Third Bridge and how it compares to other solutions in the market, check out Third Bridge Alternatives & Competitors.
AlphaSense
Founded in 2011, AlphaSense has close to 4,000 enterprise clients, including 88% of the S&P 100, 95% of the top consultancies, 80% of the top asset management firms, and 20 of the largest pharmaceutical companies. This platform is used by corporations for strategy, competitive intelligence, and market landscaping, as well as by IR and financial professionals for messaging research, due diligence, market monitoring, and deal sourcing.
AlphaSense sources information from over 10,000+ different content sources, including company documents and regulatory filings, news and trade journals, broker research, and expert call transcripts. Coupled with this vast universe of content, AlphaSense’s smart search and AI capabilities help shorten the time to insight and take your research process from reactive to proactive.
In addition, AlphaSense features two proprietary content sets:
- Wall Street Insights® – A collection of leading equity research from 1,000+ sell-side and independent firms, covering global industries, sector themes, and companies. These resources are indexed, searchable, and available from the AlphaSense platform.
- Expert Insights – Expert Insights solutions includes the Expert Transcript Library—an ever-expanding library that currently hosts tens of thousands of expert call transcripts with competitors, industry experts, professionals, customers, and former and current executives—as well as Expert Call Services. Expert Insights prioritizes compliance throughout the content development process and has a team of trained compliance reviewers who ensure research safety for clients.
AlphaSense and Tegus: Better Together
As of July 2024, AlphaSense and Tegus have joined forces, bringing unparalleled access to even more insights and covering more industries and companies than ever before.
Both platforms come with extensive libraries of high-quality research, as well as data and AI tools that allow users to extract the most value from the insights they find.
Tegus has an extensive and fast-growing library of high-quality expert research, which includes coverage of 35,000+ public and private companies across TMT, consumer goods, energy, and life sciences sectors. Additionally, Tegus’ financial data offering, which includes financials, KPIs, and fully drivable models on more than 4,000 public companies, as well as its BamSEC self-serve solution to search and access securities filings, adds new and unique offerings to AlphaSense’s extensive product suite and datasets.
For more on how the two platforms complement each other, check out our page AlphaSense and Tegus.
Pros of AlphaSense and Tegus:
- Extensive content universe with 10,000+ premium sources of information
- Access to SEC and company filings
- Large library of experts and expert call transcripts
- Ability to set up monitoring tools and alerts
- Ability to annotate and comments to call transcripts
- All-in-one access to the four key perspectives of market research
- Smart AI-powered functionality that helps streamline the research process and ensures you never miss a critical insight
- Powered by generative AI features that accelerate and enhance research
- Integration with commonly-used programs like OneNote, Sharepoint, and Evernote that enable better team collaboration and productivity
- User-friendly interface and exceptional customer service
Cons of AlphaSense and Tegus:
- Visualization tools are limited at this time
- Collaboration tools are limited to users with AlphaSense licenses
Research professionals appreciate AlphaSense for its vast content universe and advanced search capabilities that allow users to conduct comprehensive research and uncover valuable insights. With a unified integration of various data sources and a seamless user experience, AlphaSense is a one-stop solution for market intelligence.
Features Comparison
AlphaSights Features
AlphaSights allows its clients to consult multiple experts and get access to intelligence from industries across 120+ countries. It facilitates over 350,000 unique expert client interactions annually and thoroughly vets each expert for every project.
The company has recently expanded its service offering beyond just expert call transcripts and meetings and now offers respondent surveys, insights projects (similar to GLG’s Strategic projects), and a small content library named AlphaView. AlphaView is similar to the Third Bridge Forum content library, although it is significantly smaller.
Calls
AlphaSights provides calls for deep, one-on-one insights. Clients can request expert calls and share their requirements, and then AlphaSights will quickly source precisely matched experts. Clients can also select profiles they would like to speak with and discuss preferred meeting times. Additionally, AlphaSights offers a bench of ex-investors and strategy professionals to moderate calls on your behalf.
Transcripts
AlphaSights clients can order a transcript for a high-quality record of their call, which is ready within a few hours. Additionally, the platform can generate instant AI summaries of your call transcripts, which can be shared with your team.
Surveys
AlphaSights clients can run a survey for both quantitative and qualitative expert data, then monitor progress and access output in the platform. AlphaSights’ in-house survey team provides end-to-end survey support, from authoring to results and analysis. Guided by your project brief, AlphaSights can quickly build your panel of qualified experts.
Deal Advisors
AlphaSights allows its clients to add an industry veteran to their deal team by launching a Deal Advisor search and selecting an experienced Deal Advisor to map markets and support your deal execution. Users can also commission AlphaSights Executive Partnerships team to run a deep custom search against their requirements.
Research
AlphaSights provides its users access to structured expert perspectives on-demand with transcripts and summaries available in the platform. Additionally, clients can commission research on companies and markets of interest, and AlphaSights’ specialized research team can set up calls with leading experts.
Third Bridge Features
Third Bridge is an expert network, so while it can provide specialized insights, it does not offer comprehensive market intelligence for data-driven, holistic market research. Third Bridge recognizes this shortcoming with its features—if you’re facing a unique business problem and there is no relevant existing content in the platform, you can take advantage of Third Bridge Forum or Connections.
Forum
Forum is an archive of analyst-led investigative interviews, which provides global industry knowledge and full sector insights. The library has over 30,000 transcripts and conducts over 10,000 interviews annually.
Maps
Third Bridge keeps track of public and private company value chains to help users speed up their early research. It uses a proprietary market research model called Maps to rank, filter, and prioritize companies, enabling investors to make decisions faster.
Connections
Investors can gain direct access to prequalified industry experts in one-on-one consultations for better insights into the market.
Community
Community connects Third Bridge clients to relevant experts by leveraging its extensive global expert network, thorough pre-qualification processes, and a compliance framework.
These interviews are then anonymized and made available via Forum, so clients can get preferential fixed-rate pricing on one-on-one consultations versus traditional more expensive expert consultations.
AlphaSense Features
Sentiment Analysis
Using sentiment analysis, a feature built with natural language processing (NLP), AlphaSense identifies changes in a text’s tone and subjective meaning. Then, using different color codes, it helps you identify if the document has positive, negative, or neutral sentiments.
Each search term gets a sentiment change score that helps you track any slight change in market sentiments across time. With this feature, you can catch subtle inflection points in language that move markets and provide early indicators of shifting corporate performance.
Smart Synonyms™
Another feature is the AI-based Smart Synonyms™ technology—a capability that studies keywords and intent behind your search engine queries. Using advanced algorithms, AlphaSense eliminates noise from your search, including content with matching keywords that is irrelevant to search objectives. AI search functionality lets you find the exact documents and snippets most relevant to your search, saving time and energy for more high-level tasks like analysis.
Generative AI
Unlike other consumer-grade generative AI (genAI) tools trained on publicly available data, AlphaSense takes an entirely different approach. Our industry-leading suite of generative AI tools is purpose-built to deliver business-grade insights and leans on 10+ years of AI tech development. Our proprietary AlphaSense Large Language Model (ASLLM)—trained specifically on business and financial data—matches or beats the leading third-party LLMs over 90% of the time.
Our suite of tools currently includes:
- Smart Summaries – this feature allows you to glean instant earnings insights—reducing time spent on research during earnings season, quickly capture company outlook, and generate an expert-approved SWOT analysis straight from former competitors, partners, and employees
- Enterprise Intelligence – a first-of-its-kind offering that delivers AlphaSense’s AI-powered search and summarization capabilities to customers’ internal organizational knowledge.
- AlphaSense Assistant – a generative AI chat experience that transforms how users can extract insights from hundreds of millions of premium content sources
Automated Monitoring
With real-time alerts, AlphaSense allows you to set up automated updates on the emerging trends, news, topics, markets, and companies you are most concerned with. Automated monitoring takes regular snapshots of your companies and topics of interest and sends notifications, keeping you on top of critical competitor information, insights, and market changes.
Instant Company Insights
If you’re keeping tabs on a single company, AlphaSense offers Search Analytics and Company Tearsheets that provide updates on the companies currently on your radar, giving you an in-depth reach across document types, industries, and regions. Using company insights, you can also focus and ground your research into a particular competitor, discovering critical insights that can propel your market analysis to the next level.
Integrations and APIs
It’s now becoming industry standard for many market intelligence platforms to offer integration of internal content containing both structured and unstructured data, but it’s key that this content is indexed and immediately available. A market intelligence platform should also offer the ability to upload new external content sources (such as RSS or web content), so that you can leverage the platform’s analysis tools to pull relevant insights.
AlphaSense provides integration with commonly used programs like OneNote, Sharepoint, Box, and Evernote, enabling streamlined collaboration with members across your organization and improving team productivity. It also allows you to search across all internal and external company content to find key insights, and the proprietary AI technology catches what other platforms miss in a secure and automated way.
User Experience Comparison
AlphaSights User Experience
The AlphaSights platform offers a straightforward process for connecting with experts. Its focus is on facilitating expert consultations, making it ideal for investment professionals, consultants, and businesses looking for fast, actionable insights through one-on-one calls. Setting up AlphaSights is relatively simple, with users able to request expert connections without much technical setup.
The platform is user-friendly and efficient, especially for those familiar with expert networks, but its limited features may not meet the needs of users requiring deeper data or analytics capabilities.
Third Bridge User Experience
Third Bridge, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive approach, combining expert consultations with detailed industry reports. It is particularly well-suited for professionals in the finance and healthcare sectors who need both in-depth expert interviews and robust research.
However, due to its more extensive feature set, the initial setup can take longer, as it may require tailoring the service to fit specific industry needs. Once configured, Third Bridge is also fairly easy to use, though it may require more guidance for those new to expert networks or report-based research. The Third Bridge platform has a slightly steeper learning curve, which stems from the variety of services offered, but it ultimately provides a richer user experience for those needing detailed insights.
AlphaSense User Experience
The AlphaSense platform is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive from the start. And unlike its competitors, AlphaSense is a one stop shop for market intelligence, giving you aggregated access to company documents, news, expert call transcripts, and broker research.
With AlphaSense, users can cut out cumbersome manual research tasks like combing through multiple tabs of research reports and CTRL+F’ing through documents with limited keywords.The AlphaSense UI works seamlessly with competitive research workflows and is customizable for further fine-tuning.
Clients across a wide range of verticals—from life sciences and technology to investment banking and asset management—find that AlphaSense’s AI search technology, like synonym recognition, pre-set search feeds, and smart keyword suggestions, speed up data and insight discovery even when searching across different sources. The key reasons users stick to AlphaSense are the speed of surfacing valuable data, the unparalleled accuracy lent by smart AI functionalities, and access to premium content like broker research and expert call transcripts.
Support Comparison
AlphaSights Support
AlphaSights provides personalized support through dedicated account managers. Each client typically gets an account manager who helps guide them through the process of finding and scheduling expert consultations, ensuring that the platform’s services are tailored to their specific needs.
This hands-on approach is valuable for companies needing prompt and specialized assistance. AlphaSights is not designed as a self-service platform, so most users rely on the customer service team to ensure smooth project execution.
Third Bridge Support
Third Bridge also offers strong customer service but blends together both personalized and self-serve options. Clients often have access to an account manager or customer service representative, particularly for more complex projects or long-term partnerships.
However, Third Bridge provides more comprehensive documentation and resources that allow users to engage with the platform in a somewhat self-serve manner, especially when accessing industry reports or setting up expert calls. This can give users more autonomy over their research, but direct support is also available for more tailored guidance.
In both cases, neither platform is fully self-serve, but AlphaSights leans more heavily toward a high-touch, account manager-driven experience, while Third Bridge offers a mix of guided support and self-serve options depending on the user’s needs.
AlphaSense Support
AlphaSense’s product and customer education teams provide ramp-up and learning sessions with hands-on training and demonstrations. Additionally, all AlphaSense users have a dedicated account representative available for questions and guidance. The product specialist team is also available to put together searches for research professionals to streamline their workflows.
AlphaSense maintains a regular training calendar for live, virtual, instructor-led AlphaSense Education webinars, and the website has a live Help button, where users can chat with product specialists 24/7 and receive instant support for any issues or queries.
Reviews and Ratings Comparison
AlphaSights Reviews and Ratings
Rating: 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot
Popular positives:
- Quick, quality responses and professionalism from AlphaSights customer support
- Connections to knowledgeable experts in various backgrounds
- Smooth overall process and careful vetting process for experts
Popular negatives:
- Quantity of surveys and consultations provided are fewer than desired
- Delayed or lack of compensation for expert consults
- Last-minute cancellations and lack of follow-up for consultation calls
Third Bridge Reviews and Ratings
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 on Trustpilot
Popular positives:
- Excellent service and engaging calls
- Transparent payment process for experts
- Smooth and easy process
Popular negatives:
- Lack of professionalism and last-minute cancellations for consultation calls
- Uncompensated and dissatisfied experts
- Over-persistent communications for uninterested expert prospects
AlphaSense Reviews and Ratings
Rating: 4.7 out of 5 on G2
Popular positives:
- Comprehensive data and analysis on public and private markets
- Real-time data availability
- Easy-to-find relevant and high-quality results
- Intuitive interface and great customer support
- Smart AI-powered search leads to quicker, more accurate insights
Popular negatives:
- Visualization tools are limited to financial data at this time
- Lack of collaborative tools for knowledge management
Pricing Comparison
AlphaSights Pricing
Pricing for AlphaSights typically starts at around $1,000 per consultation. The overall cost can increase based on the number of expert consultations, the seniority or expertise of the professionals being consulted, and the complexity of the project. AlphaSights operates on a pay-per-consultation model, so clients generally pay per expert interaction.
For exact pricing, it’s best to contact the company directly to get a tailored quote based on your specific requirements.
Third Bridge Pricing
Third Bridge tends to be on the higher end, with consultations and research reports often costing upwards of $1,500 each. Third Bridge offers more comprehensive services, such as custom reports in addition to expert consultations, which can further increase costs. For larger projects or ongoing access to their expert network, pricing may be higher depending on the scope and the client’s industry.
For exact pricing, it’s best to contact the company directly to get a tailored quote based on your specific requirements.
AlphaSense Pricing
AlphaSense users can access the all-in-one market research platform including unparalleled access to market data and expert analysis, proprietary AI search features, and a better, customer-centric user experience at a competitive price point. AlphaSense users have the option between enterprise and per-seat pricing, making it more accessible for businesses of all sizes.
Learn more about our scalable pricing options by visiting our pricing page or start a free 2-week trial here.
A Better Alternative to AlphaSights and Third Bridge?
While AlphaSights and Third Bridge are notable options for expert network providers, AlphaSense offers a distinct advantage over both platforms by providing a comprehensive market intelligence platform that goes beyond simply connecting users with experts.
Unlike AlphaSights and Third Bridge, which primarily focus on facilitating expert calls, AlphaSense integrates AI-powered search and genAI capabilities into a vast content universe, allowing users to quickly access and analyze a vast array of data sources, including company filings, news, analyst reports, and expert call transcripts—all in one place.
This enables businesses to gain deeper, data-driven insights quickly without the need for multiple consultations. AlphaSense’s platform is particularly beneficial for those who need real-time information and actionable insights, making it a more versatile and efficient tool for market research, investment decisions, and corporate strategy.
Additionally, AlphaSense offers a more user-friendly experience with robust customer support, making it accessible to a wider range of organizations, from startups to large enterprises. This combination of AI technology, extensive content coverage, and ease of use makes AlphaSense a superior option for companies looking to streamline their research processes and make more informed business decisions.
AlphaSense is the best choice for you if:
- You are looking for a platform that can be utilized across your organization and for various strategic goals.
- You need a platform that takes away the tedious, manual parts of research and surfaces relevant, real-time insights, saving you precious time for deeper analysis and strategy.
- You are interested in accessing an expansive content universe of proprietary, premium, private, and public content that is inaccessible to the general public and many of your peers.
- You are looking for a holistic view of any market with access to financial data, broker research, company documents, and real-time news.
- You want a platform that will replace all your various other research avenues and be the one-stop-shop for all your market intelligence needs.
- You want a platform that will work behind the scenes to ensure you never fall behind or miss critical information, with customizable real-time alerts, watchlists, and dashboards.
When selecting a platform for effective market intelligence, buyers should consider platforms that offer both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, AI-driven insights, and real-time access to an extensive content universe. These valuable offerings enable organizations to get a holistic and comprehensive view of the market landscape and make informed decisions quickly and efficiently.
The combination of AlphaSense and Tegus offers a robust and comprehensive research solution that streamlines both qualitative and quantitative research in a single platform with powerful AI technology.
