The 4 Models of Expert Research: How to Choose the Right One for Your Investment Process

The expert network industry hit approximately $3 billion in 2025, growing around 12% annually after a quieter stretch between 2021 and 2023. The industry has seen roughly 16% compound annual growth over the last decade, driven primarily by widespread adoption in the growing private equity industry and the strategy consultants they engage.

But "expert network" is no longer a useful category. What was once a straightforward service — pay to talk to an expert for an hour — has splintered into at least four distinct models, each with different workflows, cost structures, and trade-offs for investment teams.

If you're a PE deal team running commercial due diligence, a hedge fund analyst building a thesis on a public company, or a corporate strategy team evaluating an acquisition, the model you choose will determine how much time you spend, how much you pay, and whether you actually get the answers you need.

This guide breaks down the four models of expert research from the buyer's perspective: what each model actually delivers, who the key players are, where each one works well, and where it falls short.

Model 1: Traditional Expert Networks — "You Get Access. You Do the Work."

How It Works

Traditional expert networks are the original model that created this industry. You submit a research request. The network sources and vets relevant experts. You schedule and conduct the call yourself, write your own discussion guide, take notes, and synthesise the output across multiple calls into whatever deliverable you need.

In short: the network is a staffing agency for one-hour phone calls. Everything before, during, and after the call is on you.

Key Players

• GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group) — GLG pioneered the concept by launching the first information services firm in 1998. GLG connects clients with subject matter experts through one-on-one calls, interview transcripts, surveys, and custom research projects, with its core value lying in its extensive network, international coverage, and compliance infrastructure trusted by the world's largest financial institutions. GLG has over 1 million experts across 19 global offices and generates revenue exceeding $400 million.
• AlphaSights — AlphaSights is known for its speed and flexibility, connecting clients to experts quickly, often within a few hours. AlphaSights operates with more than 500,000 experts, nine offices worldwide, and revenues over $300 million, primarily focusing on consulting and private equity.
• Guidepoint — Guidepoint is recognised as a global leader, known for its ability to connect clients with vetted experts quickly and at scale, trusted by investment teams, consultants, and corporate strategists. As of mid-2024, Guidepoint had 1,300+ employees across 17 offices, 1.5 million+ experts, and 4,500+ clients worldwide.
• Third Bridge — Third Bridge is a global investment research provider serving private equity, credit investors, hedge funds, and corporates, combining expert calls with a scalable research ecosystem that includes analyst-led interviews and thematic content.

Reviews & Market Perception

GLG's platform has a 4.6/5 Trustpilot score. Client reviews illustrate that the caliber of experts is high, backed up by unfiltered insights that directly address clients' inquiries. However, GLG usually charges its clients between $1,500 and $2,000 per hour — a price point that adds up fast across a multi-call due diligence workstream.

AlphaSights focuses on delivering fast, high-touch expert access to support rapid decision-making, making it a favoured partner for deal teams working under tight timelines. However, AlphaSights places less emphasis on transcript libraries and archival content, which can limit access to previously captured insights.

On Guidepoint, expert-side reviews frequently praise organisation and responsiveness. Users say "The Guidepoint system is easy to navigate and the staff are very responsive." However, firms seeking richer transcript content, deeper analysis, or greater pricing clarity often compare it with competitors like Third Bridge or GLG.

Positives

• Unmatched scale and global reach. GLG remains the largest in breadth and global coverage. For niche geographies or hyper-specific functional expertise, traditional networks cast the widest nets.
• You control the conversation. If you have a highly specific thesis or a sensitive line of questioning, being on the call yourself lets you probe in real time.
• Established compliance frameworks. GLG and Third Bridge are both recognised for their rigorous compliance frameworks and strict expert vetting processes.
• Speed of expert sourcing. Experts are typically sourced and scheduled within 24 to 48 hours, depending on task complexity.

Negatives

• All the work falls on the buyer. You write the discussion guide, schedule the calls, run the interviews, take notes, and synthesise 10–15 transcripts into something actionable. For a deal team already under time pressure, this is a significant resource drain.
• Expensive per-call pricing. Budgets range from $25,000–$50,000 annually for occasional users to $250,000–$500,000+ for heavy users. When you add the cost of your team's time on top, the all-in expense is even steeper.
• Expert quality is inconsistent. Some reviews mention the problem of mismatching — for instance, one GLG user noted "some mismatch of skills is leading to less productive calls."
• MNPI risk sits with your team. When your analysts are on the call, the compliance burden of monitoring for material non-public information falls squarely on you. Your firm's compliance team has to vet every interaction.
• No finished deliverable. You're buying raw inputs, not answers. Turning 15 expert conversations into an investment memo is your problem.

Best For

Teams with deep internal research capacity, dedicated analysts who can devote full days to scheduling and conducting calls, and compliance infrastructure to monitor live conversations. Often suits large hedge funds or strategy consulting firms where the analyst is the research process.

Model 2: AI-Augmented Platforms — "AI Does Some of the Work"

How It Works

This model combines expert network access with AI-powered search, transcript analysis, and increasingly, AI-conducted interviews. The platform aggregates a massive content library — transcripts, filings, broker research, news — and layers generative AI tools on top to help you search, summarise, and extract insights at speed. You can still book one-on-one calls, but the pitch is that the AI layer reduces how many calls you need to make.

Key Players

• AlphaSense (including Tegus) — The dominant player here. In 2024, AlphaSense acquired Tegus to unify research and speed decision-making, with Tegus bringing expert calls and private-company data. The deal valued Tegus at $930 million. AlphaSense is a leading enterprise-grade market intelligence and AI search platform, unifying financial research, expert transcripts, one-on-one calls, and AI-powered research into one seamless workflow. The platform now features AI-led interviews, where the AI Interviewer leverages the full breadth of prior relevant knowledge to engage senior industry experts in probing conversations.

Reviews & Market Perception

Users cite "incredible value from Expert Insights feature that unlocks a whole new set of proprietary insights." The platform is well-regarded for its breadth: as of early 2025, AlphaSense claimed a searchable database of approximately 450 million documents.

However, there are notable trade-offs. The noisiest user complaint is about initial complexity — new users often feel overwhelmed by the volume of features and data, with phrases like "overwhelming for first-time users" appearing multiple times in reviews. The platform is also described as "squarely enterprise-grade" with "steep learning curve" where power users love it but feature overload can slow adoption.

Positives

• Massive content library. The Tegus Expert Transcript Library surpasses 200,000 transcripts covering 25,000+ public and private companies across every major sector.
• AI-powered search and synthesis. The platform claims to help complete qualitative research 5–10x faster with AI tools and filters.
• Lower per-call cost. Transparent pricing with no hidden markups reportedly saves around 70% per call compared to traditional expert networks.
• Compliance infrastructure. AlphaSense invests over $100 million annually in the Tegus Expert Transcript Library, with a market-leading compliance programme. A dedicated compliance team of over 75 professionals ensures clients get insights in a secure and compliant manner.
• Flexible call formats. Calls can be booked in 30, 45, or 60-minute increments with pay-as-you-go or prepay packages.

Negatives

• AI interviews have limits. An AI interviewer can ask pre-programmed follow-ups, but it cannot read body language, detect evasion, or pursue the unexpected tangent that often yields the most differentiated insight in commercial due diligence. For sensitive CDD topics — customer churn drivers, competitive threats, management quality — AI-led calls may surface breadth but miss depth.
• Transcript library content has a shelf life. How relevant is a transcript from last year to a stock you're trading today? It could be very relevant for trend analysis, or not at all — "there's nothing as old as yesterday's news."
• You still do the synthesis. The AI summarises individual transcripts, but turning insights from 20 different expert perspectives into a structured investment view — triangulating conflicting data points, weighting credibility, identifying patterns — still requires human analytical judgement.
• Enterprise pricing and complexity. After being acquired by AlphaSense in 2024, Tegus materially raised prices, with many customers switching to alternatives. The platform's depth can overwhelm teams that just need targeted answers on a specific deal.
• Content overlap and noise. There is a notable difference in content types: Tegus content is mostly user-generated and often quite short, with multiple overlaps on the same asset — for example, roughly 500 calls on Block/Square alone. More content does not always mean more signal.

Best For

Public equity analysts who need broad, always-on coverage of sectors they follow continuously. Firms with high call volumes that benefit from the unit economics of a subscription model. Teams with strong internal research capability who want AI to accelerate — not replace — their own analytical process.

Model 3: Transcript & Data Libraries — "You Read Pre-Existing Content"

How It Works

Rather than conducting your own expert calls, you subscribe to a library of pre-recorded, transcribed expert interviews. You search by company, sector, or topic, read the transcripts, and extract what you need. No scheduling, no discussion guides, no call time. The research already exists; your job is to find and interpret it.

Key Players

• Tegus Expert Transcript Library (via AlphaSense) — The world's largest and fastest-growing collection of investor-led interviews, more than double the combined size of all competing libraries, growing by 7,000 transcripts each month.
• Third Bridge Library (formerly Forum) — A three-part product including company databases, a transcript library of hosted expert calls, and the ability to AI-search all content. Unlike Tegus, Third Bridge's library content is largely authored and planned by in-house analysts rather than user-generated.
• Guidepoint Insights — Launched in 2018, a product similar to Third Bridge's Forum.
• In Practise — A smaller, independent player known for deeply curated, long-form interviews focused on business quality analysis.

Positives

• Instant access, no scheduling required. If a transcript already exists on your target company, you can be reading it in minutes — a huge advantage when you're evaluating whether to pursue a deal.
• Cost-effective for broad coverage. Clients pay per-seat subscriptions to access growing databases of call transcripts. Tegus prices subscriptions based on fund AUM, starting at $20–25,000 per user per year.
• Good for getting smart quickly. Transcript libraries are an efficient way to "get smart" on a general topic, with broad appeal across many roles.
• Multi-layered compliance review. Every transcript undergoes a multi-layered compliance process, powered by AI and reinforced by human-in-the-loop review.

Negatives

• No customisation. The questions were designed for someone else's research needs. If you have a specific thesis or a particular angle on the target, you can't ask follow-ups or redirect the conversation.
• Your competitors read the same transcripts. Calls are to a large part generated by customers, who get discounted rates in exchange for allowing their calls to be recorded, transcribed, and resold to subscribers. Anything you find in the library, other subscribers find too. There is zero information edge.
• Privacy concerns for sensitive research. Employment history and bios are included in transcripts — and most clients could probably discern the expert's identity within a few searches. This means experts may be less candid, particularly on competitive or sensitive topics.
• Content decays. A 12-month-old transcript on a fast-moving market may be actively misleading rather than merely stale.
• No synthesis or deliverable. You get raw transcripts. Turning them into an investment recommendation is entirely on your team.

Best For

Analysts doing early-stage screening or thesis generation who need to "get smart" on a sector quickly. Investors who follow the same companies over time and want to track expert sentiment longitudinally. Not ideal for high-stakes due diligence where you need customised, differentiated primary research.

Model 4: Done-for-You Research — "We Do the Work. You Get Answers."

How It Works

In this model, you brief a research team on what you need to know — about a target company, a market, a competitive landscape — and they go and do the entire primary research process for you. Expert sourcing, discussion guide design, interviews, quality control, synthesis, and a finished deliverable. You don't schedule calls. You don't read raw transcripts. You receive structured, investment-ready research output.

Key Player

• Woozle Research — Woozle is the only dedicated done-for-you primary research platform built specifically for investment professionals. Woozle is not an expert network. It doesn't sell access to experts or charge per call. Instead, PE deal teams, hedge fund analysts, and corporate strategy teams brief Woozle on their research questions, and Woozle's research team handles the entire process end-to-end: expert sourcing, interview design, conducting the calls, quality control, compliance review, and delivering a finished, actionable research output — typically in days, not weeks.

What Makes This Model Different

Every other model described above requires the investment professional to do significant work: scheduling calls, writing discussion guides, sitting on hours of expert conversations, cleaning transcripts, reconciling conflicting data points, and ultimately synthesising everything into a view. That work is valuable — but it's also the bottleneck that slows down deals and consumes your most expensive resource: your team's time.

Woozle eliminates that bottleneck entirely. Here's how:

Positives

• Faster delivery. Woozle delivers finished research in days, not weeks. Because the research team works in parallel across multiple expert interviews, the turnaround is dramatically faster than a deal team trying to schedule and conduct calls one at a time around their other responsibilities.
• More cost-effective than it appears. When you factor in the fully-loaded cost of an associate's or VP's time spent scheduling, conducting, and synthesising expert calls — often 40+ hours across a CDD workstream — the done-for-you model frequently costs less than doing it yourself through a traditional expert network, even before you account for the per-call fees.
• No time drain on your deal team. Your analysts and associates can focus on financial modelling, management meetings, and deal execution rather than spending days on the phone with experts. This is particularly critical during competitive auction processes where time is the scarcest resource.
• Built-in quality control and fact-checking. Every Woozle deliverable goes through a rigorous internal review process. Research findings are triangulated across multiple expert perspectives, checked for internal consistency, and validated before delivery. You're not reading raw, unfiltered call notes — you're getting research that has been stress-tested.
• Significantly reduced MNPI and wall-cross risk. This is one of the most underappreciated advantages of the done-for-you model. Because Woozle's researchers — not your investment team — conduct the expert interviews, your analysts and PMs are never on the call. The research output is reviewed by two separate compliance teams before it reaches any investment professional. This dual-layer compliance process dramatically reduces the risk of inadvertent exposure to material non-public information and simplifies wall-crossing protocols. For hedge funds managing complex information barriers, and PE firms navigating public-to-private transactions, this is a meaningful structural advantage.
• Scale without headcount. Need 30 expert interviews across three geographies for a CDD? Woozle can run that in parallel without your team conducting a single call. This makes institutional-grade primary research accessible to leaner teams that don't have dedicated research analysts.
• You get a deliverable, not a pile of transcripts. The output is a synthesised, structured research report — not 15 transcripts you need to read, code, and reconcile yourself. Findings are organised around your actual research questions, with clear takeaways and supporting evidence.

Negatives

• You're not on the call. Some investors — particularly experienced sector specialists — prefer to hear directly from experts so they can follow unexpected threads in real time. Done-for-you research requires trusting the research team's judgement on when to probe deeper.
• Less suitable for ongoing monitoring. The done-for-you model is optimised for project-based, question-driven research (CDD, thesis validation, competitive analysis) rather than continuous sector coverage.

Best For

PE deal teams running commercial due diligence on live transactions where speed and quality directly impact deal outcomes. Hedge fund analysts who need differentiated primary research but can't afford to spend days on the phone. Corporate strategy and M&A teams evaluating acquisitions without in-house research infrastructure. Any investment team that values their time, their budget, and getting answers — not just access — at scale.

Side-by-Side Comparison

How to Choose the Right Model for Your Process

Most sophisticated investment firms don't use just one model. Many organisations maintain relationships with 2–3 platforms. The question isn't "which is best?" — it's "which is best for this research need?"

Here's a practical decision framework:

• You're getting smart on a new sector or screening a large pipeline of targets: Start with a transcript library. It's the fastest and cheapest way to build baseline knowledge.
• You're an experienced sector analyst who wants to probe a specific expert on a specific question: A traditional expert network gives you direct control over the conversation.
• You need broad, ongoing market intelligence across your coverage universe: An AI-augmented platform like AlphaSense gives you the most comprehensive content set and AI tools to monitor it.
• You're running commercial due diligence on a live deal, validating a thesis under time pressure, or need primary research at scale without burning your team's bandwidth: Done-for-you research from Woozle is the model purpose-built for this. You get faster delivery, lower all-in cost when you account for your team's time, built-in quality control, and — critically — the compliance protection of having a dual-review process between your investment team and the primary research.

The Bottom Line

Expert networks have become essential tools for investment firms, enabling faster deal execution and more informed investment decisions. As competition intensifies and diligence timelines shrink, selecting the right model can be the difference between securing a winning bid and missing out.

But "selecting the right model" no longer means picking one expert network over another. It means understanding that the industry has evolved into fundamentally different service categories — and matching the right category to the right use case in your investment process.

For hedge funds and PE firms that value their time, their budget, and receiving actionable insights delivered in days rather than weeks, the done-for-you model isn't just another option. It's the only model where the output is the thing you actually need: answers.