# Bob Research — Live Web Q&A with Synthesis

> Bob Research — Live Web Q&A with Synthesis is a paid API for AI agents from bob.assimilatethis.com, paid per call via x402, $0.01/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-10).

Answers factual or market-research questions by searching the live web with Tavily and Exa, extracting the best page with Firecrawl, and returning a synthesized short answer with source URLs.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://bob.assimilatethis.com/research?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.01/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-10
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/bob-research-live-web-q-a-with-synthesis-f9c326cd
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_ONG43UmnSPup1d2rD37Ad

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability bob-research-live-web-q-a-with-synthesis-f9c326cd
```

Example prompt: What's the current market share breakdown among the top three cloud providers? Search the live web and give me a short synthesized answer with your sources.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need a synthesized, direct answer to a factual or market-research question backed by live web sources, rather than a raw list of search results or a full page summary. It is ideal when the user wants a concise, ready-to-use answer rather than raw snippets, and when freshness matters (e.g. current prices, recent events, live market data). For plain ranked search results without synthesis, prefer the sibling search endpoint. For verifying a specific claim, prefer the fact-check endpoint.

## Known failure modes

- Timeout: if the web search and extraction cannot complete within the time limit, an error is returned and no charge is applied
- No relevant page found: if Firecrawl cannot extract sufficient content from the best candidate page, the answer may be incomplete or empty
- Ambiguous question: vague or poorly scoped queries may yield low-quality or off-topic answers
- Rate limiting or upstream provider failure: Tavily, Exa, or Firecrawl may be temporarily unavailable, returning an upstream error

## How this service works

Ask any factual or market-research question. Searches the live web with Tavily and Exa, extracts the most relevant page with Firecrawl, and returns a short synthesized answer with source URLs. Typical response 4 to 8 seconds. If it cannot answer in time you get an error and are not charged.

## Output

A short synthesized answer (typically a paragraph) responding directly to the question, along with an array of source URLs from the live web pages that informed the answer. Response arrives in 4–8 seconds.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET",
      "HEAD",
      "DELETE"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "q"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "q": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "The research question to answer"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "answer",
      "sources"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "answer": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "sources": {
       "type": "array",
       "items": {
        "type": "string"
       }
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/bob-research-live-web-q-a-with-synthesis-f9c326cd/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from bob.assimilatethis.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/bob.assimilatethis.com/llms.txt)