Question 1

What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?

Accepted Answer

GEO — also called AI search optimisation — is making sure AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini recommend and cite your brand when buyers ask. Where SEO optimises for ranking in Google's blue links, GEO optimises for being named in the AI-generated answer itself. As more buyers start their research inside an AI chatbot rather than a search engine, the answer shortlists for them before they ever reach a results page. Read the full primer in our what is GEO guide.

Question 2

Why does showing up in AI answers matter for my business?

Accepted Answer

The AI answer is increasingly where the buyer's shortlist gets made. When someone asks ChatGPT "the best tool for X", the brands it names and cites are the ones that get considered — often before a salesperson is ever involved. If a competitor is recommended and you are not, you have lost the deal at the very top of the funnel, invisibly. Tracking your AI visibility and closing the gaps puts you back in that conversation, and the advantage compounds as AI search keeps growing.

Question 3

Which LLMs does Surfaced track?

Accepted Answer

Surfaced tracks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, DeepSeek and Grok. You can choose which ones to track based on your preference and plan. More engines are added as their APIs stabilise — we don't gate core engines behind upsells.

Question 4

How often is data refreshed?

Accepted Answer

Tracked prompts run daily by default. Custom scan cadence is possible for enterprise plans.

Question 5

Do you support multilingual tracking?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Markets in Surfaced are defined as a combination of language and country or territory — not language alone. German-Austria, German-Switzerland and German-Germany are separate markets because AI engines localise answers by region, not just by language. Each market also carries cultural variables (formality, tone, local conventions) that feed into content generation so the content reads naturally for the target audience. Over 100 language–country combinations are supported out of the box on every plan — no add-on. Learn more about multilingual tracking on the multilingual page.

Question 6

Do you track citations as well as mentions?

Accepted Answer

Both — and we distinguish between them. In GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) the terms have specific meanings:

Citation — the AI engine explicitly attributes a claim to a source URL (including the raw source URL the engine surfaces as a reference). In Perplexity these are the numbered footnotes; in Google AI Overviews they appear as source cards. A citation means the engine chose your page as authoritative enough to reference.

Brand mention — the AI names your brand or product in its answer text without necessarily linking to you. Example: "Tools like Acme and WidgetCo can help…" — both brands are mentioned, but neither may be cited with a URL.

Inline link — your domain appears as a hyperlink inside the answer body (common in ChatGPT and Grok responses). Distinct from a footnote citation.

Surfaced captures all three detection types for every tracked prompt. Brand mentions and inline links feed your Brand Visibility score; citations feed your Citation Rate. You can filter the dashboard by detection type to see, for instance, prompts where you get mentioned but never cited — a signal that your content is known but not structured well enough to earn a source link.

Question 7

What is sentiment scoring?

Accepted Answer

For each AI response that mentions your brand, Surfaced scores the surrounding text on a 0–100 scale (0 = negative, 50 = neutral, 100 = positive). The score reflects how the AI engine frames your brand — "industry-leading" vs "has been criticised for pricing", for example. Unlike traditional search snippets (which you partly control via meta descriptions), AI responses editorialise, so sentiment tracking matters.

Question 8

What is Brand Visibility?

Accepted Answer

Brand Visibility is the percentage of AI responses that name or link to your brand in the answer text. A response either mentions you or it doesn't — we count you once per response, regardless of how many times the AI says your name. If Surfaced tests 30 responses for a prompt and your brand appears in 18 of them, Brand Visibility is 60%. It's the best single measure of whether you're in the AI conversation at all.

Question 9

What is Share of Voice?

Accepted Answer

Share of Voice measures how much of the total entity conversation your brand captures. For a given prompt, it's the percentage of all entity mentions in AI responses that belong to your brand — so if the AI names five tools per answer and yours is one of them, your Share of Voice on that prompt is around 20%. At the workspace level, Share of Voice is computed across your brand plus your pinned competitors plus the top entities by mention count, so the number matches what you see in the competitor ranking card. It tells you how dominant you are in the conversation — not just whether you show up.

Question 10

How is Share of Voice different from Brand Visibility?

Accepted Answer

They count different things, and you need both.

Brand Visibility is a per-response yes/no: of the responses the AI gave, how many mention you at all? Once per response, capped at one.

Share of Voice is a share of total mentions: across every brand or product the AI named in those responses (you plus competitors), how much of that noise is yours?

Two scenarios for the same prompt make the difference concrete:

Scenario A — "showing up but getting drowned out." The AI mentions you in 9 of 10 responses, but every response also names four competitors prominently. Brand Visibility is 90% ("I'm almost always in the answer") but Share of Voice is 20% ("I'm one voice of five — I'm outnumbered").

Scenario B — "niche but dominant." The AI mentions you in 3 of 10 responses, but those responses only talk about you. Brand Visibility is 30% ("I'm usually not in the answer") but Share of Voice is 60% ("when the AI does talk about anyone, it's mostly about me").

Scenario A signals "we need stronger differentiation — we're in the conversation but losing the narrative." Scenario B signals "we need broader reach — we dominate where we appear, but we don't appear often enough." Brand Visibility alone can't distinguish the two. The combination tells you what to fix.

Question 11

What's the difference between tracking, gap analysis and content generation?

Accepted Answer

Tracking tells you where you stand across AI engines. Gap analysis tells you which prompts and which competitors are beating you, and what the structural signals are. Content generation writes a citation-ready page that closes the gap. The three work as a single loop. See Getting started for a walkthrough.

Question 12

How does content generation work?

Accepted Answer

When you promote a gap into an idea, Surfaced pre-fills the brief with the target prompt, the competitor's citation and a recommended angle. Click Generate and the system writes a page grounded in your workspace engine — your brand voice settings, knowledge base documents and preferred phrasing. The output is a citation-optimised article designed for the AI engines that flagged the gap. Review, tweak, export or publish to your website.

Question 13

How is Surfaced different from Semrush, Ahrefs, Otterly or Peec?

Accepted Answer

See the side-by-side comparisons on our site. Short version: Surfaced is GEO-native (not a bolt-on over an SEO suite), tracks across every major AI engine (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok), ships content generation alongside monitoring, and is priced for teams that don't want to stack per-user add-ons.

Question 14

Can I use Surfaced for multiple clients (agency)?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Pro plan (3 workspaces) and Business plan (10 workspaces) both support multi-workspace management with isolated tracking and content per client, plus white-label exports. Each workspace has its own prompts, brand settings, knowledge base and billing usage. Many of our agency customers run multiple client accounts from a single Surfaced login. See the agency page for more.

Question 15

Do you have an API?

Accepted Answer

Yes — available on Pro and above. REST endpoints cover all functionality of Surfaced — from tracking and scan results to content generation. Full reference lives inside the app once you have an account.

Question 16

How long until I see results?

Accepted Answer

Three timescales matter. The first AI visibility scan returns in under two minutes — you'll see exactly which prompts cite you and which cite competitors. The first gap report and content brief arrive the same day. Citation lift on a freshly published article typically lands in 4–8 weeks, depending on how often each AI engine re-crawls your domain and how much existing authority you have. Some customers see needle movement within 14 days on long-tail prompts; broad category prompts take longer.

Question 17

Does Surfaced replace SEO or work alongside it?

Accepted Answer

Alongside, almost always. The same authority-dense, entity-rich content that earns AI citations also performs well on Google — the structural signals overlap. Most customers see organic search lift as a side effect of GEO work. The metrics differ (citation rate and Brand Visibility vs. keyword rankings), but the underlying content investment pays off across both surfaces. See GEO vs SEO for a deeper comparison.

Question 18

Do I need a developer to set this up?

Accepted Answer

No. Paste your URL and Surfaced finds your sitemap, identifies the prompts your buyers are likely asking, and returns the first audit on day one. Optional integrations such as CMS publishing and knowledge base sync involve technical setup; API access is available on every plan. The core loop — track, detect, generate, verify — runs without developer help.

Question 19

What plans are available?

Accepted Answer

Four plans: Free (300 tracked AI responses, included models, 1 workspace), Starter at €49/mo (3,000 responses, all supported models, 1 workspace), Pro at €149/mo (15,000 responses, all supported models, 3 workspaces) and Business at €349/mo (50,000 responses, all supported models, 10 workspaces, SSO). API access is included on every plan. Annual billing saves roughly two months. Full breakdown on the pricing page.

Question 20

Is there a free tier?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Anyone can run on-demand scans at /scan with no account. The Free plan includes 300 tracked AI responses per month across its included models, plus API access.

Question 21

How does billing work?

Accepted Answer

Monthly or annual, invoiced in EUR. Annual saves roughly two months. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel from billing settings at any time — no sales calls, no retention friction.

Question 22

Do you offer discounts for startups or non-profits?

Accepted Answer

Yes for both — and for accredited education programmes. Reach out via the contact form and we'll send you the right terms.

Question 23

Can I cancel anytime?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Monthly plans cancel anytime from billing settings — no minimums, no retention calls, no email gauntlet. Annual plans pro-rate the unused portion. Your tracking history and generated content stay accessible through the end of the billing period.

Question 24

How do you handle our data?

Accepted Answer

Your prompts, tracked domains and generated content live in your workspace. We don't train shared models on your content, and we don't sell data to third parties. Full details are in our privacy policy.

Question 25

Are you GDPR-compliant?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We're EU-based, store data in EU regions by default and honour standard GDPR rights. DPAs are available on request.

Question 26

Is my billing information secure?

Accepted Answer

Payments are processed by Stripe. Surfaced never stores raw card data — we only retain the Stripe customer reference.

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