How FIRI Research Works
The FIRI Index organizes the AI security and human sovereignty landscape into 12 macro layers covering 49 specific research topics. Each topic is treated as a market, regulatory, technical and social signal surface.
The Index Structure
Layers map the landscape from AI Security and Agent Governance through Human Verification, Reality Authentication, Privacy Defense and Agent Infrastructure. Topics are stable identifiers designed for citation, vendor mapping and institutional planning.
Scoring System
Each topic receives two scores on a 1-5 scale: Market Readiness and Strategic Impact. Market Readiness measures maturity, vendor density, deployability and buyer urgency. Strategic Impact measures institutional consequence, regulatory pressure, security relevance and long-term sovereignty importance.
Market Readiness
1 = speculative, 3 = emerging deployable market, 5 = active market with urgent buyer demand.
Strategic Impact
1 = narrow relevance, 3 = material for a defined market, 5 = mission-critical for institutions.
Priority Tiers
- T1: Score 16-25. Mission-critical, active markets.
- T2: Score 9-15. High-impact, emerging markets.
- T3: Score 4-8. Watch list.
- T4: Score 1-3. Speculative or distant.
Research Process
- Autonomous Topic Scouts scan the web via Perplexity Search API.
- Source Verifier evaluates credibility, originality, bias and topic relevance.
- Search Coordinator deduplicates and ranks findings.
- Editorial Director drafts analysis in FIRI voice.
- Human editor review refines and publishes material.
Independence & Conflict of Interest
FIRI does not accept advertising. Sponsored research, if ever commissioned, is clearly marked. Vendor mentions are based on objective criteria, not commercial relationships. Marc's consulting work at firi-index.com is disclosed as a sister practice separate from the public .org intelligence layer.
Update Cadence
- Topic pages: updated weekly when new sources emerge.
- Sub-reports: reviewed quarterly or when major market shifts occur.
- Vendor Landscape: continuous updates via company tracking.
- Regulatory Tracker: updated within 7 days of significant regulatory developments.
Editorial Standards
FIRI uses an editorial, academic and source-critical voice. Claims should be attributable, vendor claims are treated as signals rather than facts, and corrections are made when better evidence appears.
How to Cite FIRI
Use the citation widget on topic pages or the citation formats on the Citations page. Stable topic codes such as FIRI-101 are designed to remain citeable across versions.
Methodology Versioning
Current methodology version: v0.9. Major revisions will be logged in future changelogs.