Getting Started

From sign-up to your first AI visibility scan in under ten minutes. This guide walks through account setup, your brand profile, running an audit, and navigating the platform.

1. Getting access

SurfaceGX accounts are provisioned by an administrator — either your company's internal admin or a SurfaceGX team member. You will receive an invitation email with a link to set your password.

If you signed up directly, your account will be marked as pending until an admin approves it. You will see a confirmation page while approval is in progress. Once approved, you will have immediate access to the platform.

2. Complete your brand setup

The first time you sign in, you will be guided through a short setup wizard. This information is used to personalize your audits and pre-fill the inputs across all modules.

• Brand name — The exact brand name you want AI engines to recognize. Use the name your customers use, not a legal entity name.
• Website URL — Your primary domain (e.g. https://acmecorp.com). This is where SurfaceGX will scan for AI readability.
• Industry — Selecting your industry helps tailor audit prompts to the questions real buyers in your space ask AI engines.
• Scoring weights — You can adjust how heavily each dimension (AI Presence, Hallucination, Narrative, Algorithm) contributes to your overall score. The defaults are balanced for most use cases.

Your setup answers are saved and can be updated at any time via the settings panel.

3. Run your first audit

Navigate to the Diagnosis module under the AUDIT group in the left sidebar. This is the starting point for understanding your brand's AI presence.

1. Enter your brand and URL

   Your brand name and website URL will be pre-filled from your setup profile. Confirm or adjust them before running.
2. Select AI providers

   Choose which AI engines to query. By default, SurfaceGX queries Claude. Additional providers (GPT-4, Gemini, Perplexity, and others) can be enabled by your admin.
3. Run the audit

   SurfaceGX queries all selected AI engines simultaneously and compiles the results. Most audits complete in 30–90 seconds depending on the number of providers selected.
4. Review your results

   Your results are displayed across four dimensions. See the section below for what each dimension means.

4. Understanding your audit results

The core audit scores your brand across four dimensions, each measuring a distinct aspect of AI visibility.

Dimension	What it measures
AI Presence	Whether your brand appears in AI-generated responses when users ask about your category, and how prominently it is featured.
Hallucination Risk	Whether AI engines are fabricating or distorting facts about your brand — wrong pricing, false claims, invented features.
Narrative Alignment	How closely the language AI uses to describe your brand matches your actual positioning and messaging.
Algorithm Readability	Whether your web pages are technically structured in ways that AI crawlers can reliably read, extract, and cite.

Each dimension is scored and contributes to a combined score. A citation network map below the results shows which sources AI engines are drawing from when they discuss your brand.

5. Navigate the platform

The dashboard is organized into four navigation groups in the left sidebar. Each group represents a stage in the AUDIT → DIAGNOSE → EMPOWER → REPAIR workflow.

• AUDIT — Measure your brand's AI presence, accuracy, narrative, and page readability. Start here every session.
• DIAGNOSE — Go deeper on the root causes. Map how AI handles buyer questions, trace your citation sources, and find content gaps.
• EMPOWER — Generate action plans for your content and SEO teams. These modules produce 30/60/90-day roadmaps and page outlines ready to delegate.
• REPAIR — Score individual pages for AI readability, get specific fix instructions for your writers and developers, and generate the manifest files that make your site legible to AI crawlers.

6. Tips for best results

• Use your exact brand name. The name field is sent directly to AI engines as a search query. Use the name your customers type, not abbreviations or legal names.
• Include your homepage URL. Even if you are auditing specific pages, your homepage URL provides critical context for all modules.
• Run audits on a consistent schedule. AI engine behavior changes as their training data and retrieval systems are updated. Monthly scans let you track progress and catch regressions.
• Export your findings. The Discovery Scoring Engine (REPAIR) can export an AI Readiness Report in Markdown format, segmented by fix type — ready to share with your content writer or developer.