This article walks through how to launch an Autopilot run. All you need is a description of your technology or a document about it. Everything else is optional.
1. Open Autopilot
In the left sidebar, under Projects, choose Autopilot.
2. Choose a targeting mode
Research & Partnerships for a technology you want to license or partner on.
Career Services to find employers and recruiting contacts for students or graduates.
3. Describe the technology
You can paste a description, upload documents, or do both in the same run.
In the text box, paste a research summary, a patent abstract, or a description in your own words. Detail helps. Say what the technology does, what problem it solves, and who would use it.
To add documents:
Upload up to 20 files, each up to 20 MB.
PDF, Word (.doc and .docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), plain text, Markdown, HTML, LaTeX, and JSON files all work.
Excel files and images aren't accepted. Copy the relevant text into the text box instead.
In Career Services, describe the student instead: their academic background, skills, research focus, and the career they want.
The Summarization Template field lets you choose how the summary is written. Leave it as it is, or choose a different template to use for the run. To learn how to build summary templates, see Summarization: turning research into marketing summaries.
4. Narrow the search (optional)
The buttons under the upload area narrow which companies Autopilot looks at.
Location. Autopilot starts with companies in this location. If it can't find enough there, it widens the search to companies worldwide and tells you on the results page.
Company Size. Small, Medium, or Large. Autopilot judges size from several factors, such as revenue, funding, and employees. Pick more than one to broaden the search, or leave it empty for any size.
Industries. Choose up to 3. Results can come from any of them.
Exclude Companies. Companies you don't want in the results, such as current licensees. Add them one at a time, paste a list, or upload a CSV file with a Company Name column and an optional Website column. Adding the website gives a more exact match.
5. Launch
Choose Launch. The Autopilot project will take about 2-3 minutes to load.
While it runs
Autopilot opens the new project straight away and shows Automatically generating all project data while it finds companies, people, markets, and a summary. This usually takes a few minutes.
You can leave the page. The run continues, and you'll find the project under My Projects. When the companies are ready, the tabs appear. A banner saying Autopilot is still running stays at the top while contacts are still being matched, so counts can still change.
Quick answers
What you see | What it means |
Maximum of 3 industries allowed | Remove an industry before adding another. |
There was an unexpected issue while processing your project. | The run failed. Try launching again, and contact support if it keeps happening. |
The launch button is greyed out | Your trial or subscription has ended, or hasn't started yet. Choose Manage plan, or contact your Customer Success Manager. |