The easiest way to keep up with anything online is to let a tool check it for you on a schedule, so you only see what matters, when you want it.
Most people don't have a research problem. They have a checking problem.
The Real Cost of Too Many Tabs
Think about your week. You probably open the same handful of websites over and over. A job board. A competitor's pricing page. A subreddit about your industry. A news site for a topic you care about.
Each visit takes a minute or two. Nothing has changed. You close the tab. You do it again tomorrow.
That's not research. That's a habit that quietly eats your time.
What "Automated Tracking" Actually Means
Automated tracking means you describe what you want to watch, and a tool goes out and checks it for you. No code, no browser extensions, no RSS feeds (a system where websites push updates to a reader app).
You just say what you want in plain English, pick how often you want updates, and get a report.
That's it.
The Five Things Most People Actually Track
Here are the most common things people set up automated tracking for:
- Competitor news - "What has [company name] announced this week?"
- Job listings - "New remote marketing jobs posted in the last 7 days"
- Price changes - "Has the price of this product dropped on any major retailer?"
- Industry news - "Key stories in the electric vehicle space this month"
- Mentions - "Has anyone written about my brand, product, or name online?"
Each of these has one thing in common: the information changes slowly. You don't need to check daily. But you do need to check consistently, or you'll miss something.
A Concrete Example
Say you're a freelance graphic designer. You want to know about new clients posting design briefs on Behance, any news about Adobe raising its prices, and what's trending in logo design.
Instead of visiting three sites every morning, you could set up three tracking tasks in plain English:
"Search for new design project postings on Behance and freelance boards weekly"
"Alert me if there's any news about Adobe pricing or subscription changes"
"Find trending logo design styles and discussions from the past month"
Each one runs on a schedule. You get a short, sourced report in your inbox. You spend two minutes reading it instead of twenty minutes clicking around.
This is exactly what AIDular does. You tell it what to track in plain English, choose daily, weekly, or monthly, and it searches the web and emails you a clean report with sources. The Lite plan is free.
Why This Works Better Than a News App or Google Alerts
News apps show you what their algorithm thinks is popular. Google Alerts (a free tool that emails you when Google finds new results for a keyword) works for simple keyword matches, but it can't answer a question or summarize a topic.
An AI research assistant can take a broader, messier request like "What are small restaurants doing to cut costs this year?" and actually pull together a useful summary from multiple sources.
It's the difference between a search box and a research helper.
How to Start Without Overthinking It
Pick one thing you check manually every week. Write down what you'd type into Google to find it. That sentence is your first tracking task.
Here's a fill-in-the-blank to get you going:
"Every [week/month], search for [topic or question] and summarize the key updates."
Paste that into AIDular, set your schedule, and you're done. No setup beyond that.
The goal isn't to track everything. It's to stop re-checking the same corners of the internet by hand when a tool can do it for you.
Try it free at aidular.com.