Ben Lang floats 'InstantExpert,' an AI-mediated expert network concept

Ben Lang, the operator and angel investor behind the Next Play newsletter, published a list of ten project and startup ideas this week. One of them, "InstantExpert," pitches an AI-mediated expert network that strips the scheduling layer out of the standard Tegus or AlphaSights workflow.

The concept, as Lang describes it: a client submits a research brief, the platform auto-identifies qualified experts and reaches out, and any expert who's interested joins a call immediately rather than negotiating a calendar slot. An AI agent runs the call, asks follow-ups until the brief is satisfied, and ships a written report back to the client. AlphaSense is the only incumbent named in the post.

What the idea covers, and what it leaves out

Lang's post is a sketch, not a spec. He does not address the parts of the expert-network business that consume most of the operating cost: compliance screening of experts, MNPI training, client matching, post-call review, and the moderator relationship that AlphaSense, GLG, Guidepoint, and Third Bridge spend most of their differentiation budget on. Those omissions are fair for an idea list. They are not fair for a buyer comparing this to an incumbent.

The expert-call workflow has two parts that look like grunt work from the outside. Scheduling is one. The other is the moderator's preparation: building the question tree, knowing what's been asked on prior calls, steering away from MNPI, and recognising when the expert is drifting into something a compliance team will redact before the transcript ships. "InstantExpert" as described compresses both into an AI agent. Fine for the first. The second is the harder problem and the one that gets you sued.

Why the latency framing matters

There is a real pain point underneath the pitch. Buy-side analysts working a thesis on a 48-hour clock genuinely lose time to scheduling. A same-day expert call beats a two-day-out expert call when the news is moving. That part of the idea is not wrong.

What the idea understates is the rest of the value chain. The reason analysts pay roughly four-figure hourly rates for expert network calls is not only access to the expert. It is the compliance wrapper that lets them cite the call in an investment memo without ending up in front of the SEC. Strip the wrapper and the price collapses, but so does the buyer's ability to use the output for anything beyond background colour.

Lang's full list of ten ideas is on the Next Play newsletter. The expert network entry is one of the more pointed ones in a market where the incumbent workflow has been roughly stable for a decade.