--- title: Introduction description: Surface finds the AI tools on employee laptops, scores their risk, and lets you allow, warn, or block them from one console. --- Every week, someone in your company installs a new AI tool. A coding assistant. A browser add-on that reads every page. A connector that gives an AI agent access to GitHub, or to the file system. None of it goes through IT. Most of it is invisible. **SuperAlign Surface** makes it visible and puts you in control. ## What Surface does | | | | --- | --- | | **Finds** | Every AI tool on Mac, Windows, and Linux laptops, whether or not anyone approved it | | **Maps** | How the tools connect, for example which agent uses which connector | | **Scores** | Each tool from 0 to 10 against a catalog of about 200 policies | | **Enforces** | Your Allow, Warn, or Block decision, on every affected laptop, within seconds | | **Records** | AI conversations and their cost, if you turn that on | | **Logs** | Every decision and change, for audit | ## How the pieces fit Surface has two parts. - The **scanner** is a small program on each laptop. It runs in the background, looks for AI tools every 15 minutes, and reports what it finds. - The **console** is the website where you see everything the scanners found, and where you make decisions. ```mermaid flowchart LR subgraph laptops["Every laptop"] S[Scanner] end S -->|"1. reports AI tools"| C[Console] C -->|"2. shows inventory and risk"| U[You] U -->|"3. Allow, Warn, or Block"| C C -->|"4. carries it out"| S ``` ## Who uses it - **Security and IT** find risky tools and remove them from the fleet. - **Leadership** sees how much AI the company really uses and what it costs. - **Compliance and audit** get a record of what exists, who approved it, and who looked at what. - **Engineering managers** see which developer tools are in use across their teams. ## Next steps Learn the handful of words the console uses. Get one laptop reporting in about 15 minutes.