Methodology

How Our Review Signal Stack Works

Full transparency into the production analysis layers that transform consumer reviews into sentiment scores, review momentum, signal context, snapshots, and exports.

Neural Core
Anomaly Detection & Embeddings Engine

Neural Core is the foundation of ReviewSignal's intelligence stack. It transforms raw review text into 384-dimensional semantic embeddings using MiniLM, then applies Isolation Forest anomaly detection to identify statistically significant deviations in rating, sentiment, and review volume across all tracked locations.

MiniLM 384-dim Embeddings — all-MiniLM-L6-v2 captures semantic meaning far beyond keyword matching. Each review is encoded into a dense vector space where similar opinions cluster together.
Isolation Forest Anomaly Detection — Trained on 8,700+ real samples, the model identifies locations exhibiting statistically unusual rating drops, sentiment shifts, or volume spikes.
Welford's Online Statistics — Incremental algorithm tracks running means, variances, and z-scores per entity without reprocessing historical data. Scales to millions of data points.
Zero External API Cost — The entire inference pipeline runs locally on our infrastructure. No OpenAI, no cloud NLP services. Every embedding computed in-house at zero marginal cost.
384
Vector Dimensions
<1s
Inference Latency
$0/mo
API Cost
8,700+
Training Samples
Echo Engine
Sentiment Propagation & Confidence Scoring

Echo Engine models how consumer sentiment cascades across geographic and brand networks. Using sparse matrix propagation and current confidence scoring, it generates review intelligence signals when sentiment at one location is supported by related locations and competing brands.

Sparse Matrix Propagation — Sentiment signals propagate through a weighted adjacency matrix connecting locations by geography, brand affiliation, and competitive relationships.
Confidence-weighted runtime — Each signal carries explicit strength only when the current propagation payload supports it, instead of promising a decorative simulation layer.
Distance-Decay Weighting — Propagation strength decreases with geographic distance following an exponential decay function, ensuring local signals carry appropriate weight.
Review Signal Generation — Final output is an operational review intelligence label, not investment advice.
79
Monitored Chains
36,400
Locations in Scope
0.78
Avg Confidence
3
Signal Types
Data Sources & Coverage
Review Corpus, Chain Scope & Freshness

The pipeline starts with review text, ratings, timestamps, locations, and chain metadata. Public claims are tied to coverage counts and freshness labels so users can see whether a view is current, delayed, or historical before using it in research.

Review Inputs — Ratings, review text, timestamps, location metadata, chain labels, and normalized sentiment scores.
Coverage Scope — Chain and location counts are displayed as product limits, not implied universal market coverage.
Freshness Labels — Dashboards and exports distinguish current snapshots from delayed or historical data.
No Synthetic Reviews — Product surfaces are based on indexed source reviews and derived aggregate fields.
Reviews
Primary Source
Chains
Scoped Universe
Freshness
Shown in UI
Exports
Evidence Output
Cortex AI
Institutional Narrative Generation

Cortex AI transforms quantitative signals into written analysis for the exact dashboard or report context. It uses section-specific prompts and a constrained institutional research voice rather than one generic market summary.

Claude Foundation Model — Built on Anthropic's Claude for concise institutional commentary tied to the selected section or report block.
Section-Specific Prompts — Supported dashboard and report sections use dedicated prompt templates tuned for that analytical context, including map and competitor views.
Institutional Research Voice — Writing style is constrained toward a colder, desk-grade tone instead of generic assistant language.
Scoped Runtime Context — Commentary is grounded in the current dashboard aggregates, chain state, or export payload available to the runtime.
16
Prompt Templates
Section-aware
Context Mode
Report + dashboard
Output Surfaces
Institutional
Voice Target
Snapshot & Export Layer
Evidence Packaging for Research Workflows

The final layer packages sentiment, momentum, anomaly, and propagation context into dashboard snapshots, downloadable reports, and machine-readable exports. The goal is review evidence that can move into an analyst workflow without overstating certainty.

Snapshot Views — Point-in-time dashboard state with coverage, freshness, and source context.
CSV / JSON Exports — Structured outputs for analyst notebooks, internal dashboards, and due-diligence archives.
Data Packaging — CSV/JSON-ready summaries for monitored chains and selected coverage windows.
Evidence First — Derived claims stay connected to review counts, dates, and scoped chain coverage.
CSV
Exports
CSV
Tables
JSON
Structured Data
Freshness
Included
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