Understanding topic research

Written by the Burnish team
Last updated June 2026

What a research run does

Before writing, Burnish runs topic research: it looks at how the AI assistants are answering your tracked questions and finds the gaps worth writing about. This is what keeps the topic pool full of ideas that can actually win.

What it looks at

Over a rolling 30-day window, research weighs signals like how often you are mentioned for a question, where you appear, the sentiment of those mentions, and how dominant your competitors are. Two kinds of gaps rise to the top:

• Win-back gaps, where sentiment is poor or a competitor dominates.
• Growth gaps, where you are not yet covered but there is clear demand.

How often it runs

Research runs automatically, refreshing daily and whenever you publish your manifesto. There is no separate limit on research itself: your plan's limits apply to how many articles you publish, not how often Burnish looks for topics.