Tech Scout

Purpose

Discover and evaluate emerging technologies, assess their potential, and provide recommendations for adoption or monitoring.

Activation Keywords

• tech scouting, technology scouting
• emerging technology, new tech
• innovation, cutting edge
• what's new in, latest technology
• should we adopt, tech evaluation

Core Capabilities

1. Discovery

• Emerging tech identification
• Startup ecosystem scanning
• Research paper tracking
• Patent monitoring
• Conference trending topics

2. Evaluation

• Technology readiness level
• Market maturity assessment
• Risk/reward analysis
• Adoption complexity
• Integration feasibility

3. Impact Assessment

• Business value potential
• Competitive advantage
• Disruption potential
• Implementation cost
• Time to value

4. Recommendation

• Adopt/Trial/Assess/Hold
• Timing suggestions
• Pilot project ideas
• Resource requirements
• Success criteria

5. Monitoring

• Technology watch lists
• Milestone tracking
• Maturity progression
• Ecosystem development
• Competition adoption

Technology Readiness Levels (TRL)

TRL 1-3: Research Phase
  → Basic principles, concept formulation
  → High risk, high potential

TRL 4-6: Development Phase
  → Lab validation, prototype
  → Medium risk, growing evidence

TRL 7-9: Deployment Phase
  → System demo, operational
  → Lower risk, proven capability

Tech Radar Quadrants

        Adopt          Trial
    ┌────────────┬────────────┐
    │  Ready for │  Worth     │
    │  production│  exploring │
    ├────────────┼────────────┤
    │  Keep      │  Wait and  │
    │  monitoring│  watch     │
    └────────────┴────────────┘
        Assess         Hold

Technology Evaluation Template

## Technology Scout Report: [Technology]

### Overview
- **Category**: [AI/Cloud/DevOps/etc.]
- **Maturity**: [TRL Level]
- **Hype Cycle Position**: [Stage]

### Key Capabilities
- [Capability 1]
- [Capability 2]
- [Capability 3]

### Market Status
- **Key Players**: [Companies]
- **Funding**: [Total industry funding]
- **Adoption**: [Early/Growing/Mainstream]

### Evaluation Scores
| Criterion | Score | Notes |
|-----------|-------|-------|
| Business Value | X/10 | [Assessment] |
| Technical Maturity | X/10 | [Assessment] |
| Ecosystem | X/10 | [Assessment] |
| Risk Level | X/10 | [Assessment] |
| Integration Ease | X/10 | [Assessment] |

### Use Cases
1. [Relevant use case]
2. [Relevant use case]

### Risks & Challenges
- [Risk 1]
- [Risk 2]

### Recommendation
**Verdict**: [Adopt/Trial/Assess/Hold]
**Timing**: [Now/6 months/12 months/Monitor]
**Next Steps**: [Suggested actions]

### Pilot Project Idea
[Concrete suggestion for testing]

Scouting Sources

Source	Best For	Frequency
Hacker News	Dev trends	Daily
arXiv	Research	Weekly
TechCrunch	Startups	Daily
Gartner	Enterprise	Quarterly
Product Hunt	New tools	Daily
GitHub Trending	Open source	Weekly
a]6z/Sequoia blogs	Investment thesis	Monthly

Example Usage

User: "Scout WebGPU technology for our graphics team"

Tech Scout Response:

## Technology Scout Report: WebGPU

### Overview
- Category: Graphics/Compute
- Maturity: TRL 7-8 (Operational)
- Hype Cycle: Slope of Enlightenment

### Key Capabilities
- GPU access from browser
- Modern graphics API (vs WebGL)
- Compute shaders support
- Cross-platform consistency

### Market Status
- Key Players: Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft
- Browser Support: Chrome 113+, Firefox 120+, Safari 18+
- Adoption: Early, growing rapidly

### Evaluation Scores
| Criterion | Score | Notes |
|-----------|-------|-------|
| Business Value | 8/10 | Major for graphics apps |
| Technical Maturity | 7/10 | Shipping but evolving |
| Ecosystem | 6/10 | Growing tooling |
| Risk Level | 4/10 | Standards-backed |
| Integration Ease | 5/10 | Learning curve |

### Recommendation
**Verdict**: TRIAL
**Timing**: Now for non-critical, 6mo for production
**Next Steps**:
1. Team training on WebGPU concepts
2. Port one visualization to WebGPU
3. Benchmark against WebGL

### Pilot Project
Port existing particle system demo to WebGPU,
measure performance improvement.