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2 min readChangelog

Chat: Research Lab

Introducing the Research Lab — a unified research platform inside Poly Chat with 4 layered capabilities, 29 tools, 18 search providers, a visual pipeline builder, and autonomous agents

Research Lab

Chat now includes a full research platform. Four capabilities layer together in a unified workspace — Search is always on, and you toggle Deep Analysis, Discovery, and Autonomous Agent mode on top.


Four Capabilities

Search

The base layer. 18 search providers — arXiv, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, OpenAlex, Crossref, Tavily, Brave, Product Hunt, GitHub, Kaggle, HuggingFace, and more. 16 focus modes from web and academic to finance, health, and space. Four depth levels — Quick, Standard, Deep, and Pro. Pro Search decomposes your query and runs parallel multi-provider searches.

Deep Analysis

Multi-phase research methodology. Phase 1: evidence grading. Phase 2: hypothesis generation. Phase 3: peer review simulation. Phase 4: convergence analysis. Includes a thought tree for non-linear reasoning, a paper editor with TipTap, citation graph visualization with forward/backward traversal, and BibTeX export.

Discovery

Product and competitive intelligence. Catalog extraction, competitor landscape mapping, feature matrix comparison, SWOT analysis, radar charts, and industry presets.

Autonomous Agent

ReAct loop architecture with a three-panel monitor — Plan (strategy and tasks), Feed (live execution stream), and Evidence (sources as discovered). Steer the agent mid-execution, set token budgets, save and resume with checkpoints, and approve plans before the agent acts.


Visual Pipeline Builder

Build research workflows visually with a drag-and-drop DAG editor. 46 node types across search, analysis, validation, generation, citation, and product categories. Conditional branching with compound AND/OR logic. Parallel execution for independent branches. Auto-layout, node grouping, execution visualization with glow and pulse effects.

Five built-in templates. Version history with snapshot/revert. A/B pipeline comparison — run two variants on the same input. Pipeline variables for runtime substitution.


Research Builder

An alternative to the visual pipeline. Compose linear chains of research steps, add parallel branches, and insert tools between steps. Toggle between chain builder and visual pipeline — they convert automatically.


29 Research Tools

Search & Discovery — Web search, academic search, patent search, dataset search, pro search

Evidence Analysis — Analyze sources, extract data, check consistency, detect contradictions, compare results, identify gaps

Validation & Quality — Assess credibility, compute confidence, cross-validate claims, assess bias, methodology fitness, cluster sources

Writing & Synthesis — Generate hypotheses, evaluate quality, write sections, synthesize, statistical summaries, build timelines

Citation & Graph — Search citations, citation graph, search documents

Product Intelligence — Discover products, competitive analysis


Chat ↔ Research Integration

Research results flow into chat — insert findings with one click. Chat messages escalate to research — send a conversation to Deep Analysis or Autonomous mode with context preserved. A unified activity feed on the Chats page merges both histories.


Additional Chat Updates

  • Comparison Mode — Run two research sessions in parallel with split-panel side-by-side comparison
  • Persistence — Three-mode system: Local (IndexedDB only), Dual Write (IndexedDB + backend sync), or Backend Only
  • Export — Research papers to PDF, DOCX, Markdown, JSON, BibTeX, or CSV
  • Telemetry — Token usage, quality scoring, confidence metrics, and cost estimation per session

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