What is SurfSense?
SurfSense is an open-source AI research tool for live web data extraction and synthesis. It serves as a NotebookLM alternative, letting you and your AI agents pull structured data from Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, SERP, Indeed, Amazon, Walmart, and web crawl via REST APIs or an MCP server. The platform also offers a research workspace with cited briefs, artifacts (podcasts, videos), and automations. Ideal for competitive intelligence, market research, and agent-driven workflows.
What are the features of SurfSense?
- Live Web Research Agent: Crawls dozens of live sources on a question and synthesizes a cited answer, bypassing stale indexes. Works with prompts and document references.
- Platform-Native Connectors: Each connector (Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, etc.) is a REST API that returns structured items like posts, comments, transcripts, and reviews — no LLM in the retrieval loop.
- Artifacts & Deliverables: Generate podcasts, videos, and other content formats from research results, plus scheduled automations for recurring briefs.
- Desktop App & MCP Server: Use the desktop app for direct interaction or connect your own agents via the SurfSense MCP server for automated retrieval.
- Self-Hostable & Open Source: The entire platform’s code is available on GitHub. You can self-host or use the cloud free tier with no credit card required.
What are the use cases of SurfSense?
- Competitive intelligence teams pull live Reddit comments and YouTube transcripts to track brand sentiment and product discussions.
- Market researchers use Google Maps and SERP APIs to build lead lists and monitor local business rankings.
- AI agents automate daily briefs by fetching TikTok trending feeds and Amazon product reviews for trend analysis.
- Recruiters and analysts extract job postings, salaries, and company data from Indeed for labor market tracking.
- Academic researchers crawl web pages and YouTube transcripts to synthesize cited literature reviews.
How to use SurfSense?
- Sign up for free at SurfSense’s website (no credit card required) to get an API key or access the desktop app.
- Choose a connector (e.g., Reddit API) and call it with your API key to receive structured JSON data.
- Use the research workspace to type a prompt with
/and reference documents with@for cited synthesis. - For agent workflows, connect your AI agent to the SurfSense MCP server to pull live data programmatically.
- Review the open-source repository on GitHub if you prefer to self-host the entire platform.
