# Research (/chat/research)



Ask Sim to investigate a topic, read a URL, or compare sources. Specify the question, time range, and output you need. Web research is available when the deployment provides the required search or page-reading tools.

## Ask a research question [#asking-questions]

Include enough scope to identify useful sources:

* "What did Salesforce, HubSpot, and Gong ship in the past 30 days? Cite the product updates."
* "Read \[URL] and explain what changed in this release."
* "Check Stripe's documentation for webhook retries and idempotency handling."

Sim can search web sources, read pages, and look up technical documentation. It returns an answer in the chat; ask for a saved file when you need a longer deliverable.

## Save a report [#research-reports]

Name the comparison criteria, intended audience, and destination. For example:

> Compare five AI sales tools on pricing, features, and customer feedback. Save a cited analysis as ai-sales-tools.md, including missing or conflicting evidence.

Open the saved report beside the conversation to review its evidence. Find it later in **Files**, or ask Sim to turn it into a presentation.

## Check source access and freshness [#check-source-access-and-freshness]

Hosted web research reads publicly accessible pages. In Sim Desktop, the built-in browser can also work with websites you sign in to when browser tools are available. A link to a private page does not itself give Sim access.

For connected organizational sources such as Slack or Google Drive, use [Search](/search) or ask Sim to inspect those sources under your current permissions.

Check the cited source and publication date when freshness matters. Search results can be incomplete; a report should distinguish what the sources establish from what remains unknown. Request a specific site or documentation page when that source is required.

## Related docs [#related-docs]

* [Files and documents in Chat](/chat/files)
* [Search](/search)
* [Sim Desktop](/desktop)