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AlphaSense vs Factiva

In this guide, we explore the key differences between AlphaSense and Factiva—including strengths, weaknesses, and in-depth feature comparisons—to help you choose the right tool for your business needs.

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FAQs

AlphaSense vs Factiva: Key Differences

AlphaSense

AlphaSense is a secure, all-in-one market intelligence and AI search platform built for robust financial and market research. This tool is ideal for firms looking to accelerate research, enhance productivity, and gain a competitive edge using AI and automation.

Consistently ranked as an industry leader by TrustRadius and G2, AlphaSense was also recognized by Forbes as a top 50 AI company in 2023.

Here’s how AlphaSense helps you extract insights and access both high-value internal and external content with the power of artificial intelligence—all in one single platform.

Extensive Out-of-the-Box Content Library

AlphaSense comes equipped with an extensive collection of external market intelligence and research that comprises over 10,000+ private, public, premium, and proprietary data sources. Our platform is purpose-built to speed up your team’s access to information on all the relevant topics and companies driving your market.

Our external content sources include news, trade journals, and company documents (including SEC and global filings). Beyond that, AlphaSense also gives users access to two proprietary and premium content offerings. These are:

Expert Insights – 40,000+ expert transcripts featuring one-on-one calls with competitors, customers, professionals, industry experts, and former and current executives. You can also request bespoke 1:1 expert calls for less.
Wall Street Insights® – A collection of broker research from Wall Street’s leading firms, covering global sector themes, industries, and companies from 1,000+ sell-side and independent firms, available within the AlphaSense platform. Research professionals can even preview the contents of a broker report, saving them wasted time and money on potentially fruitless research.

Designed for enterprise-level organizations, AlphaSense also enables you to upload, index, and search through your own content using our smart search technology. That includes:

Internal research, notes, and presentations
Reports from industry and market intelligence providers
Newsletters, web pages, and RSS feeds
Meeting and conference notes

AI Search & Summarization Technology

AlphaSense comes with the following industry-leading AI capabilities:

Smart Synonyms™

Smart Synonyms™ is a proprietary AlphaSense feature that uses AI technology to recognize both the keyword and search intent behind any query.

AlphaSense uses advanced algorithms to eliminate noise from your search (i.e., content with matching keywords but ultimately irrelevant to your search objective) and leverages variations in language to pinpoint the exact information you need.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis, a natural language processing (NLP)-based feature, parses through content and identifies nuances in the tone and subjective meaning of text. It then uses color coding to help readers identify the document’s positive, negative, and neutral sentiments.

This technology assigns each search term a numerical sentiment change score to help users track any slight change in market sentiments across time. Users can take advantage of these historical change scores to make better-informed investment decisions and improve their risk management strategies.

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 (in beta) – a generative AI chat experience that transforms how users can extract insights from hundreds of millions of premium content sources

Integration Capabilities

Even the best companies fall victim to silos. But forward-thinking organizations know to avoid this pitfall by leveraging the advanced collaborative tools found in modern market intelligence platforms.

Seamlessly Integrate with Other Tools

AlphaSense works with the apps and tools you already use to help you be more productive with less effort. Connect with integrations to Box, Sharepoint, OneNote, or leverage our API suite to securely upload your proprietary content.

APIs

API capabilities provided by your market intelligence platform allow you to build your own tools to get maximum ROI from the content sources you can now access. For example, AlphaSense offers the following APIs for users to leverage our proprietary technology and content across other parts of their strategies:

Alert Feed API: Real-time data feed based on saved searches & alerts.
Search API: Solution that provides real-time, programmatic access to AlphaSense search infrastructure to query and filter the database of documents from a third party domain.
Ingestion API: Integration, processing, and enrichment capabilities for internal or custom content sets.
AI API: Enrichment capabilities that enable company recognition, sentiment, themes and KPI services for internal content.

Monitoring, Analysis, and Collaboration Tools

AlphaSense is designed to help users find insights faster. In order to do that, we offer a number of tools that extend beyond search and summarization to help users accelerate research tasks.

Customizable Dashboards create a centralized information hub for monitoring key companies and themes, while tailored real-time alerts provide real-time updates.
Smart Alerts monitor the most important themes, companies and market updates with weekly, daily, or real-time alerts.
Notebook+ and commenting features increase collaboration and help teams manage and share insights more effectively. Notebook+ also includes templates that streamline the process of creating deliverables, as well as folders for better content organization and retrieval.
Table Tools allow you to streamline your quantitative analysis by enabling you to export modeled time-series data on company financials.
Image Search allows you to discover insights buried in charts to quickly capture data without reading through pages of documents.
Snippet Explorer allows you to effortlessly look at any topic or theme and all its historical mentions in a single view.
Our Black-lining feature allows you to automatically identify any QoQ changes in SEC filings
Automated Monitoring allows you to set up real-time alerts that send instant updates on any relevant market movements, news, emerging trends, and competitor activities. We also generate snapshots of companies and topics regularly that keep you ahead of the curve with actionable insights.

AlphaSense Pros

Extensive content universe that spans the four key perspectives, including broker research, expert calls, company documents, news & regulatory sites.
Incorporates AI search technology, machine learning, and sentiment analysis
Generative AI features, like Smart Summaries, for earnings and image search
Automated and customizable alerts
All-in-one research platform
User-friendly interface
Internal messaging and collaboration features
Support for APIs and integrations
Supports enterprise-level organizations and teams
Enterprise-grade data production complying with global security standards
Excellent customer support team, including 24/7 chat with product specialists, a live Help button on the website, and regular live AlphaSense Education webinars

AlphaSense Cons

Visualization tools are limited at this time
Collaboration tools are limited to users with AlphaSense licenses

Factiva

Access to Factiva gives users a massive archive of over 33,000 premium trusted sources, including global newspapers, magazines, reports, publications (such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal).

Factiva is a rich source of business news, trade reports, press releases, historical equity stock quotes, market indexes, and journals. It also provides users with government data, information on potential global trends, politics, and events.

Factiva users can take advantage of the database to perform business functions such as:

Conducting competitive intelligence
Data mining and advanced analytics
Corporate communications and media monitoring
Sales intelligence and business development
Application development
Customer engagement and marketing
Conducting research and strategy

Factiva provides access to public and private company profiles, financial data, and documents—while making it easy for users to share this information internally. The platform also allows users to perform advanced searches and filter information using smart indexing tools.

Factiva’s direct relationship with Reuters and Dow Jones & Company makes it a valuable tool for companies looking for a media intelligence tool. It helps users track the latest news updates in specific industries or companies and provides access to a wide breadth of quality media content.

However, Factiva has significant limitations in its content sources and may not be suitable for users looking for a full-scale research solution. Without access to premium and proprietary content sets like broker reports or expert transcripts, it can be challenging to gain a complete view of a market, industry, or trend. Additionally, Factiva does not utilize AI in its platform, technology that is often instrumental in saving time and money and accelerating research practices.

Factiva’s key use cases include:

Media monitoring and corporate communications
Sales funnels and business development
Competitive intelligence
Application development
Advanced analytics and data mining
Business development and sales intelligence
Customer engagement and marketing

Factiva Pros

Has access to over 33,000 news archives and sources worldwide
Great for media monitoring and intelligence
Supports third-party integrations and APIs
Supports collaborations and newsletters
Customizable dashboard and alerts
Robust search and filtering tools
Trend tracking and news sentiment analysis

Factiva Cons:

Sometimes displays duplicate news and report entries
Does not support simultaneous logins
Links created inside the Factiva platform cannot be accessed outside of it
Lacks AI search capability to optimize searches
No broker research, expert calls, or ESG reports available
Data is not always accurate
Functions more as a media intelligence tool, not a robust market intelligence tool

AlphaSense clients include respected leaders in every sector:

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do companies choose AlphaSense for market intelligence?

Compared to Factiva, AlphaSense offers more diverse content options for professionals using the four key perspectives to make definitive business decisions:

Analyst – Equity research from leading Wall Street banks, that covers global markets and regional sector themes and industries.
Expert – Interviews done with top buy-side analysts and vetted experts with direct industry experience, including past executives, customers, and former and current business partners.
Journalist – Content published in major news cables, trade journals, and top government publications
Company – Reports published by private and public companies, including financial reports, SEC and company filings, transcripts, presentations, and ESG reports

On two of these fronts, Factiva falls short. While it provides users with access to up-to-date news and publications, Factiva has no expert interviews or broker research. It may give you access to a limited amount of company documents, but it does not allow you to upload and curate your firm’s internal content. Conducting research on Factiva alone could leave you with missed insights and research blind spots.

Additionally, unlike AlphaSense, Factiva lacks advanced AI search, sentiment analysis, and generative AI in its platform. Although it has smart indexing and search filtering, these are not enough to eliminate the noise from your research.

Meanwhile, AlphaSense’s AI capabilities are designed to streamline and enhance your research, while surfacing the most relevant insights in seconds. For a deep, comprehensive, 360-degree view of companies, industries, and markets of interest, AlphaSense is the ideal option.

How do corporate development and/or competitive strategy teams use AlphaSense?

Wall Street research, once considered exclusive to the financial services industry, is now used by corporations to plan and execute smart market intelligence strategies that give them an edge over competitors.

Corporations can maximize revenue potential through:

Strategic Planning – Identify growth opportunities with insight from top analysts.
Competitive Intelligence – Maintain a clear understanding of the competitive landscape and monitor specific competitor performance as needed.
Trend Tracking – Stay ahead of emerging trends to capitalize on revenue opportunities.
Market Monitoring – Confidently navigate market shifts by being the first to know of important news and updates.

How do IR teams use AlphaSense?

IR teams use AlphaSense to keep pace with industry demands, all while delivering exceptional reports to stakeholders and executives.

With tools like sentiment analysis, Snippet Explorer (instantly showing the quarter-over-quarter history of keywords and KPIs), and Topic Modules (summarizing key trends from earnings at the company and industry level), earnings analysis becomes faster, more accurate, and more streamlined than ever before.

AlphaSense helps IR teams to:

Maintain Continuity – Easily access and scan previous earnings call transcripts and other company documents to maintain consistent narratives quarter over quarter.
Monitor Sentiment Shifts – Recognize significant sentiment changes when they occur and frame them in the most effective way to stakeholders.
Track Trends – Monitor market trends and understand how they impact your business.
Prepare for Presentations and Earnings Calls – Never miss an important insight and be prepared for every potential stakeholder question.

How do financial services firms use AlphaSense?

Financial services firms can use AlphaSense to make accurate and timely investment decisions with confidence.

Access to exclusive content sources (like broker research and expert call transcripts) can give institutional investors deep insights into competitors and market trends, keeping them ahead of the pack when it comes to smart investment strategies.

Our clients range from asset management companies and hedge funds to venture capital firms and private equity. For these clients, more information is better, and they rely on AlphaSense’s extensive content universe to stay ahead.

High-value investment research applications include:

Asset Management – Pinpoint critical company metrics by analyzing earnings reports.
Alpha Generation – Find and capitalize on opportunities faster with AI.
Equity Research – Accelerate due diligence with Smart Search and Trend Analysis.
Venture Capital Auditing – Aggregate financial metrics across public and private competitors to validate target companies.
Sell-Side Research – Accelerate earnings and company analysis by recognizing sentiment shifts and important market events earlier.

How do consultants use AlphaSense?

Consultants use AlphaSense to access the insights they need to deliver smart strategic services and win more business. Using the AlphaSense platform, consultants across industries can:

Achieve stronger proposal alignment – Get smart on a company’s strategy and performance faster with access to broker research, expert call transcripts, earnings transcripts, and more.
Deliver higher-quality market research – Easily analyze 10 years worth of earnings transcripts and get the full picture faster with advanced AI capabilities.
Build deeper client relationships – Act as a confident thought leader with insights easily surfaced for you.
Discover the next great M&A opportunity – Get smart on companies and the market landscape quickly, so you can deliver the very best recommendations to your clients.

How much does Factiva cost?

According to third-party sources, Factiva’s base plans start at about $3,000- $5,000.

How much does AlphaSense cost?

An AlphaSense user can access smarter features, a better user experience, and an extensive content universe at a more reasonable price. With AlphaSense, you’ll either pay by the enterprise or per seat. Contact us for more information on pricing options.

What are some additional alternatives to Factiva?

Some credible alternatives to Factiva are S&P Capital IQ, Factset, Bloomberg Terminal, and Refinitiv Eikon. For a full list, check out our guide to Top 5 Factiva Alternatives for Competitive Intelligence.

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Experience the AlphaSense Difference

Ready to explore a massive content universe that goes beyond basic public sources and media intelligence? Curious to see how artificial intelligence and automation can elevate your research and analysis process? Look no further than AlphaSense.

Regardless of your professional role, industry, or business goals, AlphaSense offers features that can help you make better financial and strategic decisions while eliminating research blind spots.

Ready to try AlphaSense for yourself?

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