About Surfient
We're building the indexing layer AI assistants need to cite Shopify merchants correctly.
Surfient is a product of Onviqa Inc., founded in 2014 and headquartered at 11651 157th ST 2G, Jamaica, NY 11434. Our team has spent twelve-plus years shipping Shopify software for 500+ enterprise merchants. When generative AI started writing the discovery path, it became obvious the catalog layer no one had been optimising for was suddenly the most important one.
TL;DR
- Surfient is the AI-indexing platform for Shopify — we ship audits, fixes, and the machine-readable files AI engines need.
- Built by Onviqa Inc., a platform engineering team who ship Shopify software every day.
- We publish what works, what doesn't, and what's still experimental — because the field is too young for anyone to pretend otherwise.
Our mission
Traditional search optimisation was built for a ten-blue-links world. Shoppers don't live there anymore — they ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews for recommendations, and the assistant either quotes your catalog or it doesn't. We exist to make sure it does, accurately, on every surface that matters.
That means shipping the audits, the fixes, the structured feeds, and the monitoring loop that prove your store is showing up where it should. No dashboards-only posture. No “you should try this” recommendations. We write the patch, publish the file, and watch the citation graph.
What we optimise for
Citations, not clicks
We optimise for the places AI answers are generated, not ranked lists nobody reads. Every feature ships only if it moves the citation needle.
Ship the fix, not the report
Other tools tell you what's wrong. Surfient writes the patch, ships it to your theme or feed, and monitors the downstream citation. Less dashboard, more outcome.
Honest about what's new
Generative Engine Optimization is five years old at most. We publish every assumption, every confidence level, and every limit — because the field is moving faster than any vendor can keep up with alone.
The people behind Surfient
A lean team of Shopify-native engineers, researchers, and merchants. We prefer deep context over team size.
Co-founder & CEO, Onviqa Inc.
Harry Parker
Twelve-plus years leading SEO and e-commerce engineering for Shopify brands. Oversees Surfient product + platform architecture.
Learn more →Engineering, design, and research
Onviqa platform team
The same team that ships Onviqa Radar, SEO Crew, and other Shopify-native tooling. Surfient is our bet on what comes after SEO.
Learn more →Advisors
Research council
Merchants running Shopify stores across fashion, jewelry, electronics, and health — our closed beta reviewers who audit every Surfient recommendation before we ship it.
Learn more →
How we got here
2014
Onviqa Inc. founded
We set up as a Shopify-native engineering studio, shipping bespoke themes, custom apps, and SEO engineering for brands in North America and Europe.
2018 – 2023
500+ enterprise Shopify clients
Over a decade of shipping SEO, performance, and integration work across more than 500 enterprise Shopify stores — the stories, constraints, and numbers that Surfient is built on.
2024
AI indexing research starts
We began auditing how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cited merchant catalogs. The gap between what LLMs needed and what Shopify stores published was enormous.
2025
Surfient closed beta
Shipped the first GEO audit engine to a small group of Shopify Plus merchants. Their citations in AI assistants climbed week over week.
2026
Public launch
Opening up the full Surfient platform — audits, fixes, AI-ready files, and citation monitoring — to every Shopify merchant.
Where we're still early
GEO is young. We don't pretend otherwise.
Generative Engine Optimization emerged in 2023. Even the vocabulary is still shifting — what we call “citations” today, half the industry calls “mentions” or “answer inclusions.” We publish every benchmark methodology, every assumption, and every limit of our tooling on the blog and in the glossary. If a claim on this site doesn't stand up to your scrutiny, tell us — we treat that as product data.
Want to talk?
We answer every inbound. Ask us about your catalog, the state of AI citations, or how Surfient fits into your stack.