Use Perplexity for Real-Time Market Research

Go to perplexity.ai and sign in (or use free without signing in). You'll see a search/question bar in the center of the screen. Perplexity looks like Google but responds like a research assistant.

Perplexity works best with natural-language questions, not keyword searches. Instead of "restaurant industry 2024" try:

"What are the current business conditions for independent full-service restaurants in the Midwest? What are lenders' biggest concerns for this sector in 2025?"

Perplexity returns a structured answer with numbered citations linking to actual sources: trade publications, market reports, news articles. Each claim has a source number in brackets. Click any source to verify the claim.

This is the key advantage over Claude: Every fact comes with a source you can cite in the credit memo.

Click Ask a follow-up below the response to drill deeper:

• "What's the current failure rate for new restaurants in urban markets?"
• "How have rising food and labor costs affected restaurant profit margins in 2024–2025?"
• "What SBA loan default rates look like for food service businesses?"

Each follow-up builds on the research session and cites new sources.

Copy the key facts and statistics into a note (Word doc or notepad) with the source URLs. Use these as the factual backbone of your credit memo's industry analysis section, then use Claude to write the narrative prose around those facts.