Surfer AI Tracker review: useful visibility data, with limits

Surfer AI Tracker is a paid add-on that monitors whether AI engines mention a brand in answers about its industry and which sources they cite instead. TechRadar’s Pawan Singh tested it by tracking Zoho across the five engines covered by the tool and comparing results with his own ChatGPT queries.

After entering Zoho’s domain, Surfer generated a business profile, competitor list and topics to track. The reviewer found the profile useful, while cautioning that users should check its details because errors could affect later results. The tool also created 40 prompts across eight topics, with five prompts per topic. Its Pro plan offers 50 prompt slots. Users can edit or add prompts and import queries from Google Search Console.

The dashboard reports a Visibility Score, Mention Rate, Average Position and Top Sources. Zoho’s Visibility Score was 51 out of 100, its Mention Rate was 33.4%, and its Average Position was 4. The review says the score combines mention frequency and placement, while Average Position counts only answers that mention the brand. It advises reading the latter alongside Mention Rate.

Topic results showed a less even picture: Zoho scored 86 for SMB CRM selection, 1% for Collaboration and 10% for Payroll and HR. Singh’s assessment is that the tracker can show where a brand appears in AI answers, but the figures need context and do not explain why a brand is missing.