You've been collecting articles, datapoints, observations. This tool helps you turn three of them into one statement that says what's actually emerging.
A trend statement is the bridge between observation and design.
You read three articles. Each one feels like it might mean something. The synthesis muscle is asking: what do they share that the next three don't? A trend statement names the shape of that something.
The work is bottom-up. Collect signals. Pick the strongest. Articulate what they have in common. Pressure-test. Refine. The tool is a scaffolding for that move, not a generator. You write the trend; the tool helps you see it.
Every signal sits in at least one of these. Tagging a signal forces you to decide what kind of pressure it represents. The strongest trend statements come from clusters that span two or more categories — that's when you're seeing a systemic shift, not a narrow one.
New capabilities, infrastructures, tools, platforms.
Markets, capital, labour, business models.
Climate, resources, ecological systems, sustainability.
Regulation, governance, geopolitics, civic shifts.
Once you have your three signals, the synthesis happens by picking which shape your trend statement should take. Different signals support different shapes. Recognising which fits is itself a teachable skill.
Names a pattern that exists right now. Present-tense. Behavioural.
Names where things are heading. Future-tense. Has a horizon.
Names a force enabling or producing something. Cause and effect.
Setup, capture signals, pick three, articulate the shape, pressure-test, review. The synthesis happens in step 3. The pressure-test in step 4 is where you can optionally bring AI in as an adversarial reader, never as an author.
Three short fields to set up your research project. The time horizon shapes what kind of trend statement you'll write later — present-tense if you're describing now, future-tense if you're projecting forward.
A signal is one piece of evidence — an article, a datapoint, an observation, a quote. Add 5 to 9 of them. Aim for an odd number: it forces you to break ties when picking three later. Tag each one by which STEEP category it represents.
Click three signals from your corpus. The tool will softly nudge you toward picking from at least two different STEEP categories. Cross-category clusters reveal systemic shifts; same-category clusters reveal narrow ones. Both are valid, but you should know which you're doing.
Three short fields. They're the bones of a trend statement: subject, verb-phrase, consequence. The tool composes a draft on the right as you type. You then rewrite it in your own words at the bottom.
Three default questions, designed to make you defend your synthesis. Answer them in your own words. The act of writing the answer is the test. There's an optional AI pressure-test below if you want sharper, statement-specific questions, but the three defaults do the real work.
If you have an Anthropic API account, Claude can read your trend statement and three signals, then generate three more adversarial questions tailored to your specific synthesis. The AI never writes the trend itself, only challenges what you've written.
Cost note: the Anthropic API is paid. New accounts get a small starter credit (~$5), but you'll need to add a payment method at console.anthropic.com. Each pressure-test call costs about half a cent. The three default questions above already do most of the pedagogical work, so this is genuinely optional.
This is the final synthesis. Edit anything by jumping back to its step; this view updates live. Print or save as PDF for your deliverable.