Glossary
What is market intelligence?
Market intelligence is the umbrella term for what a company knows about the market it sells into: its buyers, its competitors and where the field is heading. Market research, competitive intelligence and industry intelligence are each one part of it.
Updated 19 September 2026
What does market intelligence include?
In most descriptions, four things: what buyers want, what competitors are doing, how the product is performing in the market, and where the market as a whole is heading. Different teams own different parts, which is why the term means a survey programme in one company and a competitor tracker in the next.
How is market intelligence different from market research?
Market research is a method: surveys, interviews, panels and sizing models, run to answer a specific question. Market intelligence is the standing picture those studies feed, together with everything else a company learns about its market. Research is commissioned; intelligence is kept.
Where does industry intelligence fit?
It is the part of market intelligence that comes from what people in the industry say in public: founders, operators, engineers, investors and regulators, in their own words. Surveys tell you what buyers answer when asked. Public statements tell you what the people building the market chose to say unprompted.