Garage Eight has developed an AI-driven system to monitor product updates from competitors. The platform tracks changes within authenticated user interfaces, allowing it to identify new features that are not publicly announced or visible on marketing pages.
The system uses Playwright to manage browser sessions and AI to extract functional capabilities from the interface. It converts these into a structured model, which is then compared against historical data to filter out technical noise like DOM changes or A/B testing variations.
The architecture includes a dual-interface approach. Slack provides real-time push notifications about significant product updates, while an analytical layer integrated with Claude allows users to perform complex queries about competitor trends and feature history using natural language.
To handle authentication, the system utilizes persistent Chrome profiles. It employs a state machine to manage login processes, including 2FA requirements where human intervention is requested, and maintains session persistence by keeping browser processes active to avoid re-authentication issues.
The core of the system relies on a stable capability model rather than raw HTML comparison. By mapping interface elements to predefined, consistent identifiers, the platform ensures that only meaningful business-level changes trigger alerts, preventing false positives from frontend updates.
