Research question
When a buyer profile and commercial requirements are introduced in sequence, does the evaluator's recommendation field stay plural, or does it narrow?
Why it mattered
The companion run to E-034: the same kind of sequence, a different category. It watched whether project-management software behaved like CTMS, where the field collapsed to one vendor, or held a surviving set.
Method
Evaluator: Google AI Mode, single surface. The run began from an unqualified category recommendation, then introduced a buyer profile and commercial requirements in sequence, observing how the recommendation field changed at each step. Three draws. Instrument details and scoring are retained internally.
Direct observations
- The recommendation field survived as a set rather than collapsing to one vendor.
- Teamwork survived every draw.
- Productive survived two of the three draws.
- The generic project-management leaders that opened the field dropped out once buyer context was introduced.
- Agency-focused platforms emerged in their place.
Interpretation (not established)
In this category and on this surface, the recommendation reads as more firmly held than in E-034, and the surviving vendors were not the generic category leaders but agency-oriented platforms that appeared after buyer context. Whether the contrast with E-034 is driven by category, surface, or buyer profile is not established here.
Outcome and remaining uncertainty
Supported: the recommendation field survived under the tested condition, and a specific surviving set persisted across draws, which is the outcome the run was built to detect. The scope is narrow. One evaluator, one surface, three draws, one buyer profile, and no removal test, so nothing here is causal. The contrast with E-034 is an open question, not a finding.
Evidence and methods limitations
One evaluator, one surface (Google AI Mode), three draws, single coder. No removal or flip test was run, so no causal claim is made about why these vendors survived or why the generic leaders dropped out. The program still holds exactly one causally verified gate (E-002), and this run does not add to it.
Contribution to the research program
Recorded a category, project-management software, in which the field survived as a set and the surviving vendors were agency-focused platforms rather than the generic leaders. The companion category is E-034.
Follow-on
E-034 ran a comparable sequence in clinical trial management software and the field collapsed to a single vendor. Whether the difference is category-driven is an open question, not a finding.
Created from the Upstream Zero research record (session 2026-07-18). Raw outputs, instrument details, and scoring are retained privately and are not published.