For employees
What the Surface icon on your laptop is, what its notifications mean, and what it collects.
Your IT or security team installed Surface on your laptop. This page explains what it does and what you will see. It is written for you, not for the people who manage it.
What Surface is
Surface keeps a list of the AI tools installed on company laptops: coding assistants, browser add-ons, connectors that give an AI access to files or services, and similar. It checks each one against a set of safety rules and reports the results to your company’s IT team.
It runs quietly in the background and looks for AI tools every 15 minutes.
The icon in your menu bar or system tray
The small Surface icon opens a menu:
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| Surface Scanner | The version installed |
| Usage | Your own usage of Claude and OpenAI plans that are signed in on this laptop. Shown here only, never sent anywhere |
| My Device | Opens a page showing exactly what Surface found on your laptop |
| Account | The work email this laptop is signed in with |
| Status | active when everything is running |
If Account says the session expired, tell your IT team. They may ask you to run one command.
Notifications you might see
WARNING, with a tool’s name. Your company has not approved that tool. Nothing was removed. You will see the notice again each time the tool opens. If you need the tool for your work, ask your IT team to allow it.
BLOCKED, with a tool’s name. Your company does not permit that tool. Surface backed it up and removed it. If it could not be removed, Surface will close it each time it opens. Ask your IT team if you believe this is a mistake.
What it collects
- Which AI tools are installed, their version, where they are installed, and how they are set up
- Your laptop’s name, operating system, and the work email it is signed in with
It does not upload the contents of your files. If your company has turned on session recording for a specific AI tool, conversations with that tool are recorded, and your IT team can tell you which tools those are.
What it does not do
- It does not watch your screen or your keyboard.
- It does not block websites.
- It does not read email or documents.
- It cannot be used by one employee to see another employee’s laptop.
Questions
Your IT or security team manages Surface and can answer questions about what is allowed. SuperAlign, the company that makes Surface, does not see your laptop directly.