In case you’ve been living under a rock: after the amazing response to our Content Optimization Masterclass, we built you something new — the AI Search Optimization Masterclass (sneak peak).
This free, hands-on course will show you how to understand AI search and make any brand visible in LLMs.
Set aside 2 hours, grab your favorite tea, and enroll here.
Now, with that covered, here’s your roundup of everything we shipped this month to make your workflows smoother, smarter, and faster.
Let’s dive in.
Let’s talk AI needs ☕
We’re looking to chat with marketers who are already using AI Tracker (or similar tools) — and those just starting to track and optimize for LLMs. Your feedback helps us make AI Tracker even better.
👉 Book a quick online coffee and tell us what you need.
A Smarter AI Tracker Dashboard
The AI Tracker dashboard got a full refresh to help you find insights faster. Everything’s now sorted into four simple tabs:
- Overview: A project dashboard with key stats you can filter to spot insights.
- Prompts: Add, edit, or review prompts with detailed mention, sources and competitor data per each prompt.
- Competitors: Deep-dive into a specific competitor’s stats or use the new Compare feature to check visibility, mentions, and scores side by side.
- Sources: Explore every domain AIs cite, grouped by domain or frequency, and filter by model or date.
Tips to try today
- Use Compare in the Competitors tab to benchmark visibility.
- Check the Sources tab for domains AIs lean on, then pitch your brand for inclusion.
- Filter sources by AI model to see how reach and sources change platform to platform.
- Audit prompts to find where competitors are stealing the spotlight.
Brand Knowledge — Bring Your Business Context to Surfer
With Brand Knowledge, you can finally teach Surfer who you are. Add your domain, and we’ll pull details like your description, industry, key topics, competitors, and even your audience. You can edit, save, and use it across every AI-powered feature.
This update stops tools from drifting into the wrong intent, name-dropping competitors, or pulling irrelevant sources. Brand Knowledge works across Auto-Optimize, Surfy, and Coverage Booster. Saved profiles are also available as variables inside all of these tools (in case you create more than one).
Tips to try today
- Set up your Brand Knowledge profile and use it in Content Editor to stay on-brand.
- Ensure your article refers to your brand — not competitors — when writing with Surfy.
Optimization Opportunities in Notifications
Surfer Recommendations just leveled up. Until now, you only got alerts for Rank Drops. From now on, you’ll also see a notification for brand-new optimization opportunities — so you can act while competitors are still asleep.
All updates land in your Surfer inbox, giving you one place to manage your next SEO moves.
Tips to try today
- Check your notification inbox daily for quick wins.
- Prioritize pages with both Rank Drops and new recs for maximum impact.
- Move fast on fresh opportunities to lock in visibility gains.
- Treat your inbox like an SEO to-do list — clear it, and watch rankings rise.
Export Content Editor Articles as HTML or Markdown
No more messy formatting when copy-pasting. In the three dots at the top of the Content Editor (or the Publishing step of the Workflow tab, if you have the new layout), you can now export your articles as HTML or Markdown.
Perfect if you’re publishing to a CMS beyond WordPress or Confluence.
Keyword Surfer Adds Fan-Out Questions for ChatGPT 5
Keyword Surfer (free Chrome extension) now shows fan-out questions for all reasoning models, including ChatGPT 5.
Fan-outs are the extra queries AI runs behind the scenes to answer your prompt. Now you can see them, understand topic angles, and plan briefs with confidence.
Tips to try today
- Try “best time to post on TikTok” in ChatGPT 5 and check which fan-outs it uses.
- Use these insights to build topic clusters and tighten briefs.
- Combine fan-out data with Topical Map and Facts to target the most relevant queries.
Humanizer & AI Detector — Now in Your API
The tools you already trust in Surfer are now part of your custom setups. With the Surfer API add-on, you can plug Humanizer and AI Detector straight into your dashboards, systems, or automations.
That means fewer clicks, more control, and the freedom to scale. Whether you’re polishing drafts in bulk or auto-checking authenticity, it’s now built right into your flow.
Available today with the Surfer API add-on (request through: [email protected]). See API documentation.
Tips to try today
- Run the Humanizer API to refine AI drafts in bulk before they go live.
- Connect AI Detector API to your CMS to catch suspicious content automatically.
- Chain both with Zapier for a “check → polish → publish” setup.
- Track results in a custom dashboard for team-wide visibility.
Learn from YouTube
Learn from data studies
2x Your Top 10 Chances: A Content Update Study Based on 300,000+ Pages
To explore how much impact updating your existing content can bring, we analyzed over 300,000 pages across multiple niches. What we found highlights just how powerful updates can be for driving growth and visibility. Read more →
Word Count Doesn’t Matter for SEO in 2025. Here’s What to Do Instead.
For years, SEOs have repeated the same advice: “Write longer content.” But when we looked at the data, the truth became impossible to ignore. Here’s what I found after digging into 1 million pages, and how it reshapes how we think about content quality. Read more →
Wrapping Up
That’s everything new for September. From cleaner exports and smarter notifications to better dashboards and brand context, these updates are all about saving you time and keeping your content sharp.
Which one are you most excited to try? Let me know on LinkedIn!
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