SmartInvest Scout

Your AI co-pilot for better investing decisions.

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SmartInvest Scout

Inspiration

I've always been curious about investing, but the deeper I tried to go—reading annual reports, following market trends, or decoding sudden price moves—the more lost I felt.

There’s no shortage of data, but there’s a serious lack of clarity. Most tools today either overload users with raw numbers or offer generic, biased recommendations. I realized what people really need isn’t just more information, but context-aware intelligence—tailored to their goals, not someone else's.

So I built SmartInvest Scout—an AI-powered investment research assistant that cuts through the noise, highlights what matters, and lets anyone (not just finance pros) make better decisions.

What It Does

Ask Scout (AI Q&A Assistant)

Natural-language Q&A interface powered by Perplexity's Sonar. Users can ask investment-related questions like:

  • “Should I invest in Reliance?”
  • “What’s the outlook for the EV sector?”

Scout returns structured, real-time, and explainable insights.

Document Upload & Analysis

Users can upload PDF reports—annual filings, earnings calls, investor decks, etc. The app:

  • Parses and chunks documents intelligently
  • Sends them through Sonar for summarization
  • Returns key highlights: financials, strategy, red flags, opportunities

From 200-page PDFs to 2-minute reads.

Proactive Alerts

Stay ahead without obsessing over the news. Users subscribe to alerts by company or sector, and SmartInvest Scout:

  • Monitors key Indian stocks and sectors
  • Detects market-moving events (earnings, M&A, regulation, etc.)
  • Sends concise updates: what happened, why it matters, who’s impacted

Because the market never sleeps, but you should.

Personalized Insights Based on Portfolio (In Development)

Users will be able to connect their investment portfolios via APIs (Zerodha, Angel One, Alpaca, etc.). This allows:

  • Tailored insights based on owned assets
  • Custom risk-based recommendations
  • Hyper-relevant alerts

Stock vs. Topic Analysis

Scout distinguishes whether a user is researching a specific stock (e.g. "Infosys") or a broader theme (e.g. "AI in India"). Depending on the context:

  • Different Sonar prompts are used
  • Responses are adapted to fit the user’s intent
  • Analysis becomes sharper and more actionable

How We Built It

  • Frontend: React + Tailwind CSS for responsive, accessible UI components
  • Backend: Node.js, Supabase for auth, data storage (PostgreSQL), and document storage

  • AI Integration: Perplexity Sonar API for:

    • Chat responses
    • Document summarization
    • Alert generation

  • Prompts: Custom-engineered for investing, event tracking, and user intent detection

  • Deployment: Vercel for frontend, Render for backend

Challenges We Ran Into

  • Prompt Engineering: Sonar needed finely tuned prompts to return consistent, structured financial analysis across topics.
  • Stock vs. Topic Differentiation: Building smart UX and backend logic to distinguish between Tata Motors and "green energy" wasn't trivial.
  • Document Chunking: Long PDFs don’t play nice with token limits. We explored multiple chunking strategies to retain context and accuracy.
  • Alert Noise Control: It was important to balance real-time tracking with relevance—to avoid flooding users with low-signal updates.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

  • Delivered a full-stack, working product within a short timeframe
  • Seamlessly integrated AI into real-world finance use cases
  • Built a UX that makes advanced financial research accessible
  • Created value beyond traditional broker apps by focusing on context, not clutter

What We Learned

  • Prompt design is half the product when working with LLMs
  • Personalization in finance isn’t a luxury—it’s the only way to be useful
  • Simplicity in UX wins—especially in high-stakes domains like money
  • LLMs can compress hours of analysis into moments of insight, if used right

What's Next for SmartInvest Scout

  • Portfolio Integration: API-based portfolio sync for personalized insights
  • Custom Alert Preferences: Users can fine-tune what triggers alerts
  • Tax & Planning Chatbot: Let Scout help users with savings, tax, and debt questions
  • Mobile App: Native iOS and Android app for on-the-go research and notifications
  • Insight Journal: Allow users to bookmark answers, save highlights, and track evolving ideas over time

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