Strategy reports and presentations

Opening and downloading the report, having a presentation prepared and approving the programme’s plan cost no credits. In a research programme, credits are spent when the programme’s studies are started (Credits).

Getting a strategy report

A research programme has four stages: desk research, a plan with 2–4 strategic questions, fieldwork for the studies that will answer those questions, and a report that brings the results together. Argus starts a programme in two cases: when you ask for a strategy or a programme, and when your request combines several questions that need more than one study.

1. Click Argus in the sidebar; if you come from another page, an empty conversation opens.
2. Write the brand, the product, the market and the decision you need to make, and say that you want a research programme. Argus may ask whether the product is new or refreshed and which market it covers.
3. When Argus proposes the plan, review the Approve the plan card and click Approve. The card lists the strategic questions, the study that will answer each one and the total estimated credits. The card’s note reads: “Approving only locks the plan; it spends no credits. Each experiment launches one at a time and every launch is confirmed separately.”
4. Argus sets up and starts the studies in the plan. If autopilot is off, an approval card appears before every step that spends credits; approve these cards (Approvals and Autopilot).
5. When all the studies have finished, the line “Fieldwork finished; preparing the report” appears in the conversation. Argus reads the results and writes the report, and the programme moves to Done.

Tracking the programme

Once the programme starts, a Research programme button appears at the top right of the Argus page (below the conversation on narrow screens). The button shows the programme’s current status; click it to open the programme card. The card shows the programme’s status, a four-part progress bar, the strategic questions and the status of the study that will answer each question. Hover over a part of the bar to see the stage name: Research, Plan, Fieldwork or Report.

At some stages, the button text also shows progress:

• During desk research, the number of sections in which findings have been collected, for example Research programme · Research · 3 sections.
• During fieldwork, the number of studies finished out of those started, for example Research programme · Fielding 1/2.
• Once the final report is written, Research programme · Report ready.
• On narrow screens, the number of evidence items recorded during the programme is added to the end of the text, for example Evidence 11.

The programme card shows its status using the names below. Except in the cases above, the button shows the same names too.

• Only one research programme runs in a conversation at a time. If you want another programme, wait for the current one to finish and ask for the new one in a new conversation.
• Desk research continues in the background even when you are not writing. If 48 hours pass after your last message, Argus pauses the research. No message appears when this happens, and the programme’s status does not change. When you write in the conversation again, the research picks up where it left off.

Interim report

You don’t have to wait for all the results while fieldwork is running. If at least one study has finished, ask Argus to write a report with the results so far. You can open and download this interim report straight away; it is headed Interim report — fieldwork still running. The programme stays in fieldwork; the final report written when fieldwork ends replaces the interim report.

Opening the report

You can reach the report in three ways:

• Report card. When Argus writes the report, a Research Programme Report card is added to the conversation. The card contains the executive summary, an Open report button and the download row; below them, sections such as Question answers, Recommendations and Open questions are listed briefly.
• Programme card. The Research programme · Report ready button at the top right of the Argus page (below the conversation on narrow screens) opens the programme’s card. The card contains the stage bar, the strategic questions and, if the report has been written, an Open report button.
• Conversations. Click the Conversations link at the top right of the Argus page. Conversations whose final report is ready have a small dot next to their name; hover over the dot to see “Programme report ready”. Open the conversation and use either of the two ways above.

Open report opens the report page in a new tab.

Sections of the report page

The top of the page shows the report’s title, the brand name, the programme’s status (for example Done) and the date; the download row is here too. Below that are four summary tiles:

The following sections come below the tiles, in this order. A section with no content is not shown.

• Executive summary: a short text summarising the programme’s findings.
• Strategic questions: each question has its own heading. Below it are Argus’s answer, what the answer means, a percentage confidence bar and up to three data tables (each with up to 25 rows) from the study that answered that question. The numbers in the tables are the study’s computed results.
• Recommendations: a numbered list; each recommendation shows its confidence level and the questions it is based on.
• Audience findings and Cross-experiment patterns: findings about the audience and patterns that recur across studies.
• Experiment insights: the standout finding of each study and any unexpected results.
• Assumptions: the assumptions Argus made during desk research, each marked Validated or Contradicted according to the fieldwork results.
• Open questions: topics the programme could not answer.

Confidence values are Argus’s own assessment, not a measure of statistical significance. Study results come from the responses of synthetic consumers (personas); see Accuracy and limitations for how to use these results in your decisions.

Sources and evidence

The Sources & evidence (N) button at the end of the page and on the report card opens a side panel that lists the claims the programme collected and the sources they rest on. Each source’s type is shown with a label (for example Official statistics, News media or Synthetic study), and its dates with the Published and Retrieved lines; the link icon opens the original source. Outdated evidence shows the warning “Stale — evidence from …”. The panel shows the first 100 claims.

Downloading the report

The download row appears both on the report card and at the top of the report page, next to the text Download:.

1. Click PDF, PPTX or DOCX. A spinner appears next to the format; while the file is being prepared in the background, you cannot click the other formats.
2. Don’t close the tab until the file is ready. Preparation can take a few minutes; when the file is ready, the download starts automatically.

If the file cannot be prepared within 8 minutes or an error occurs, “Export failed — try again.” appears; click the format again. Each click produces a new file from the report as it stands at that moment; if you downloaded the interim report, download the report again once the final report has been written.

All three formats follow the same page order: a cover, the executive summary, one page per strategic question (Argus’s interpretation, the evidence it rests on and up to two charts), the recommendations and, where present, the assumptions and open questions. Choose PPTX to present or edit the slides, PDF to share the report as it is, and DOCX to edit the text.

The text in the file is rewritten from the report’s findings in a form suited to a presentation, so the wording may differ from the report page. Charts are drawn from the studies’ computed result tables. Evidence that rests on an AI estimate rather than a measured source (for example, statements written when a source could not be reached) is marked in the file with the note “(model estimate)”.

Getting a presentation from results in the conversation

You can ask for a presentation without starting a research programme. Argus prepares the presentation from the studies whose results it has read in the same conversation.

1. Ask Argus to read the results of the studies you want in the presentation, for example “Read the results of my last two pricing studies.”
2. Ask for the presentation, for example “Make a presentation from these results.” If you want PDF or DOCX, say so; otherwise the file is PPTX.
3. Argus says it has started preparing the presentation, and “Preparing the deck” appears in the status line. Preparation takes a few minutes.
4. When the file is ready, Argus shares the download link in the same conversation, labelled for example Sunum (PPTX) (Presentation, PPTX), Sunum (PDF) (Presentation, PDF) or Rapor (DOCX) (Report, DOCX). Click the link.

Even if you leave the conversation, the file is announced in the same conversation when it is ready; if preparation fails, Argus tells you and offers to try again. The presentation has the same layout as the strategy report file, except that it has no assumptions section.

How it relates to study reports

• The studies a research programme starts are ordinary studies. When they finish, they are listed with their own reports on the Reports page; these reports can be downloaded as PDF or Excel (Reports, Exporting and downloading).
• The strategy report summarises these studies and takes up to three tables from each. For all the charts, breakdowns by segment and raw data, open the study’s own report.
• Strategy reports and presentations do not appear in the Reports list and cannot be downloaded as Excel; they open only from the Argus conversation.

Related pages

• Working with Argus
• Approvals and Autopilot
• Reports
• Exporting and downloading
• Accuracy and limitations