A weighted composite of growth signal, trend direction, opportunity, recency, and user rating. Updated nightly against 6,481 approved AI tools. Published every Monday at 6am CT.
Every tool's Heat Score is a weighted sum of five inputs. Each input is rescaled to 0–100 before the weights are applied, so a score of 100 would require a tool to lead on every dimension simultaneously. In practice the top of the distribution sits in the high 80s.
heat_score =
0.30 × growth_signal_weight
+ 0.25 × trend_direction_weight
+ 0.20 × opportunity_score
+ 0.15 × recency_boost
+ 0.10 × rating_normalizedCategorical momentum label maintained by the Falcoscan editorial data layer: hot → 100, rising → 70, stable → 40, declining → 10. The single heaviest weight in the composite because it reflects real-time editorial judgment, not just historical metrics.
Three-state direction of category/tool movement: up → 100, flat → 50, down → 10.
Already a 0–100 value assigned per tool by the Falcoscan opportunity model, which considers addressable-market signals, competitive saturation, and differentiation.
Exponential decay with a 14-day half-life against the most recent observation of the tool. A tool observed today scores 100; one observed 14 days ago scores 37; one observed 30 days ago scores 12. Tools marked dead score 0 on this term.
recency_boost = 100 × exp(-days_since_observed / 14)User rating (0–5) rescaled to 0–100. The smallest weight in the composite because ratings are noisy at low volume; treated as a tie-breaker, not a primary signal.
The Heat Index and category-level heat values published in each Pulse issue are aggregates of tool Heat Scores combined with category-level properties — launch velocity, wrapper share, average opportunity, and average saturation — from our Market Terminal dataset. High means momentum; low means crowded, commoditized, or both.
Underlying tool signals refresh continuously. The Heat Score view recomputes nightly at 5:30am CT. A full snapshot of every metric is written to pulse_snapshots at 5:45am CT. Pulse publishes every Monday at 6:00am CT from that snapshot.
When citing Pulse numbers in articles, threads, or research, please use the canonical form: “Source: Falcoscan Pulse, Issue N.” Link to the issue's dated URL (/pulse/YYYY-MM-DD) or the alias (/pulse/issue/N).
v1.0 — April 2026. Initial public methodology. Heat Score formula fixed at the weights above. Category Heat uses a 50-base composite with saturation and wrapper-risk penalties. Recency term degrades gracefully when observation timestamps are missing, via a cascade through the most recent refresh event.
Heat Score is an opinionated signal, not an oracle. The growth_signal input depends on editorial judgment, which means it reflects the Falcoscan team's read of the market — not an impartial measurement. If you disagree with a categorization, you'll be disagreeing with a human, and we'll hear you out. Any material change to the methodology is versioned and announced in the changelog above.