Narrative Intelligence
A unified, real-time graph that blends media, search, social, and AI data to show you which positions are forming, which are available, and which ones you should take.
One graph. Four narrative layers. Real-time.
Shadow's narrative graph is the foundational data architecture of the platform. It continuously ingests signals across four layers and maps them into a unified view of how narratives are forming, moving, and resolving.
Media layer
Real-time coverage tracking across 200,000+ global sources. Volume, sentiment, outlet tier, journalist activity, spokesperson mentions, competitive share of voice. Organised per client, updated continuously.
Search layer
Keyword demand, ranking positions, content gaps, and commercial intent signals. What audiences are actively searching for, which competitors own those positions, and where the openings are.
Social layer
Conversation patterns across social platforms. Community sentiment, emerging narratives, audience signals. How conversations form and where they gain traction before media picks them up.
AI layer
LLM citation tracking across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Which brands appear in AI-generated responses, which prompts trigger competitive mentions, and where citation gaps exist. This is the newest channel, and most communications teams have no visibility into it at all.
From data to positions.
The narrative graph doesn't just aggregate data. It identifies positions: specific narrative territories that are available, forming, or contested.
This is what makes Shadow's approach to intelligence different. It's not just “what happened.” It's “what's available.”
Position identification
Where is the conversation going? Which narratives are gaining momentum? Which competitor claims are weakening?
Narrative cycle tracking
How do narratives evolve across channels? What's the typical lifecycle? Where are we in the current cycle?
Competitive mapping
Who owns which positions? Where are they exposed? Where are they overextended?
White space detection
Which positions have demand (people are searching, media is covering) but no clear owner?
Timing signals
When is the right moment to enter a conversation? When is a narrative peaking, and when is it still early enough to own?
How it operates.
Always running
Reading agents (researchers and analysts) monitor continuously. No manual searches. No scheduled pulls. Intelligence is live.
Feeds program execution
Positions identified in the graph flow directly into program execution. A narrative opening becomes a content brief. A competitive gap becomes a pitch strategy. No re-entry required.
Compounds over time
The graph gets sharper with use. Patterns that take weeks to see manually surface in hours. Competitive blind spots that persist across quarters become visible.
Replace your stack with one graph.
Communications teams currently piece together narrative understanding from disconnected sources: Cision or Meltwater for media monitoring, SEMrush or Ahrefs for search data, Brandwatch or Sprout for social listening, and nothing for AI visibility. Each tool gives a partial view. None of them connect the signals into a coherent picture of what's actually happening in the narrative landscape.
The narrative graph replaces that assembly with a single, connected data layer that feeds every other part of the platform.
Narrative intelligence changes what your team can see.
When you see the full picture, you stop reacting and start positioning. That's the difference.