The most anticipated Surfer SEO feature is finally here: Surfer AI.
But is this AI SEO writer really up to the game? That’s what we’re going to explore in my Surfer AI review.
With so many AI writing tools on the market, choosing the right one to be our AI assistant for our content creation process is becoming more challenging.
Companies continually evolve and try to incorporate the latest advances in technology. So, it won’t be long before most AI writers include the same (or pretty much the same) features.
In my Surfer SEO review, I explored the main capabilities of the software, explaining why it’s such a game-changer to optimize your content. As with any AI SEO tool, Surfer SEO can do keyword research, audit, and help you write content to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
But the newly added Surfer AI add-on (paid, unfortunately) is taking Surfer to a new level with a new set of competitors.
What to Expect from My Surfer AI Review
For this review, I thoroughly reviewed Surfer AI to evaluate its quality, ease of use, and top features.
In my review, you’ll learn the following:
- What Surfer AI is.
- Its intended audience.
- How to use Surfer AI.
- A real-life example.
- Surfer AI’s plagiarism test.
- Surfer AI alternatives.
- Pricing.
- Pros and Cons.
So, let’s start my Surfer AI review and see if it’s worth your time.
Contents
What is Surfer AI?
Surfer AI is a paid add-on for Surfer SEO subscribers that helps them generate content with the click of a button. The best part is that the AI-generated content is already optimized for higher rankings for your selected target keyword.
But what does this actually mean?
If you’re not familiar with Surfer SEO’s Content Editor, it basically suggests a list of natural language processing (NLP) keywords that it fetches from the top-ranking pages. Moreover, it shows you the average word count, headings, and images those pages have.
The closer you get to Surfer’s recommendations, the more likely you are to achieve higher rankings on Google and other search engines.
So far, so good. That’s what good AI SEO software does to help you produce SEO-optimized articles.
However, Surfer SEO introduced a new aspect never before seen in Surfer’s AI-powered tools—an AI writing tool that can turn one keyword into a complete article optimized according to the SEO guidelines suggestions.
In a nutshell, you can use Surfer AI to quickly auto-generate entire blog posts in a couple of minutes. Moreover, it features an anti-AI detection tool you can toggle before generating the content. This will ensure your content bypasses AI content detectors. But more on that later.
Who is Surfer AI for?
Although anyone with a budget may start using Surfer AI right now, the tool has a specific target audience.
Publishers
Small bloggers and affiliate marketers usually lack expertise in writing SEO-optimized content.
With Surfer AI’s in-depth analysis and advanced article creation, the automated writing process significantly increases publishers’ efficiency by cutting down the time used for research and writing.
In-house Teams
Mid-sized bloggers usually have many emails to answer, and everyone is busy. However, they still need to publish content regularly to bring fresh organic traffic without getting burned out.
With Surfer AI, it’s possible to allocate a single content editing person to your content strategy and publish dozens of articles weekly to gain topical authority and boost your search rankings.
Agencies
If you’re employed in an agency and have several clients to whom you need to deliver unique content weekly, Surfer AI can be of great help. Without a content writing tool like Surfer AI, you’d need to research and write the particular content to match the quality expected by your client.
With Surfer AI, you can go from zero to almost ready to publish in about 20 minutes. You just click on Surfer SEO’s interface to generate the article on your given keyword, and voila! This will save you hours of work if not a whole day.
How Does Surfer AI Work?
Surfer AI works by following these steps:
- Input your target keyword.
- Adjust the tone of voice, anti-AI detection (optional), and organic competitors.
- Review and adjust the AI-generated outline.
- Generate the article (this takes about 20 minutes).
- Edit the content to SEO-optimize it even further.
- Publish the content to your blog or website.
The main goal of Surfer AI is to be a Swiss army knife for AI bloggers who want an excellent optimization workflow in their digital marketing endeavors. Optimizing content with Surfer SEO was easy, but now it looks even better.
However, does it really deliver what it promises? Let’s find out.
How to Use Surfer AI to Write Content?
For demonstration purposes, I purchased one credit for using Surfer AI on my Surfer SEO account.
Here’s a step-by-step breakdown tutorial on how to use Surfer AI.
1. Choose Your Keyword
In Surfer SEO’s Content Editor, select Write with AI, input your target keyword, and hit Create for 1 AI credit.
In this example, my keyword is “how to protect yourself from inflation.” Surfer AI will browse the top-ranking pages on the web, analyze them, and gather all the knowledge it needs to get you the best article possible.
After processing, click on the keyword on the Content Editor history for further adjustments and customization.
2. Adjust & Optimize
In this wizard, you’ll be able to adjust the tone of voice and boost the AI detection tool. They recommend not to turn it on if you want the best quality possible.
However, while Google is not against AI-generated content per see, it may remove you from the SERPs (search engine results pages) if you’re using AI to manipulate rankings (such as publishing lots of AI content with the sole purpose of ranking higher).
The truth is that, whether using AI or not, everyone wants to rank higher, so where is the “AI manipulation” threshold here? Only Google knows.
For safety and to future-proof your site, I’d suggest toggling the anti-AI content. Your content will look less robotic and more human. Remember that you can always SEO-optimize the content further with Surfer’s SEO guidelines.
Next, you may select to review the outline or let Surfer AI develop its own blog outline.
Finally, you can choose the top-ranking organic competitors currently ranking for your target keyword.
Like the standard Content Editor, you can select the sources Surfer AI will use to generate the outline and the whole article. This is totally up to you—you may select competitors by content score, word count, and authority.
By default, Surfer recommends the top five URLs with the highest content score so that you can have the best chance the article will be as optimized as possible.
3. Review Outline
In this section, you can adjust your outline, including deleting or adding headings.
As of now, generating an article takes 20 minutes on average.
4. Optimize and Edit the Content
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a highly optimized SEO article, especially when the anti-AI tool was turned on!
For this particular keyword, the average score was 57, and the top-ranking page was 71. However, Surfer AI managed to produce a 2,982-word article with a score of 82 that is undetectable by AI content detectors.
You still have to make some edits, such as separating paragraphs to make them more readable and adding images and links. However, incorporating links and images are features that Surfer AI is developing and will launch shortly.
It’s also crucial to edit the result to match your brand voice and share your point of view on each topic. Don’t just publish it as it is.
Surfer AI Plagiarism
Surfer AI includes a built-in free plagiarism checker. For the example above, it deducted the content is free from plagiarism.
However, that’s not the case with Grammarly’s plagiarism detector.
Grammarly detected only 4% of plagiarism, which is impressive for a one-click tool for AI content creation. As a side note, I wrote this Surfer AI review without using AI tools, and Grammarly also detected 4% plagiarism, which I then edited.
The article was written entirely based on competitors’ research, meaning Surfer AI’s SERP analyzer did a fantastic job of developing unique content.
Personally, I would not depend on Surfer’s plagiarism checker. You’d be better off with a third-party checker like Grammarly.
Surfer AI Content Structure
All articles generated by Surfer AI start with an introduction that includes a short summary offering a rapid outline of the article’s main topic.
After developing all talking points from the outline, it also generates a final summary or conclusion and a FAQ section (frequently asked questions). Having a FAQ section on your article is an excellent way to increase your chances of getting more organic traffic, as Google may feature some of those questions and answers in its search snippets.
- Introduction.
- Short Summary.
- Content covering all topics.
- Conclusion.
- FAQ.
Surfer AI Pricing
To use Surfer AI, you must have a Surfer SEO subscription. You may learn more about it in the pricing section of my Surfer SEO review. But to give you a quick overview, the cheapest Surfer SEO plan is $19/mo, paid yearly.
Surfer AI costs $29 per article.
Considering that, typically, a freelance writer costs a couple of hundred dollars on average for a high-quality article (depending on the writer’s quality, of course), with Surfer AI, you can get about 10 articles for the same price.
That’s a massive saving. You’d only need to make some final tweaks and edits to match your brand voice, and that’s it!
You could achieve the same result with at least a 70% lower cost, yet 10 times faster. The best part is that you don’t have to hire writers, create time-consuming outlines, or compromise deadlines.
All you need to do is to hire a Surfer AI operator or become one yourself.
Surfer AI Credits
If you want to generate more than 4 articles, Surfer AI has special deals. You can purchase credits in discounted packages of:
- 5+2 free ($145)
- 10+5 free ($290)
- 25+15 free ($725)
Surfer AI Alternatives
Surfer AI is a game-changer for content writers and SEOs. However, other AI tools also do a similar job. Let’s check them out briefly. Alternatively, you may check my article on the best Surfer AI alternatives with similar features.
Longform AI by SurgeGraph
Longform AI by SurgeGraph is similar to Surfer AI in a way that it can scrape Google’s top-ranking pages and produce an article with 100% topic coverage for a single keyword.
It can generate articles of over 4k words, and you don’t have to wait 20 minutes like Surfer AI. In general, the article is ready after about two minutes.
Like Surfer AI, Longform AI lets you adjust your blog outline and tone of voice. Additionally, you can change its creativity level and readability. It also provides many SEO suggestions like link insertions and Contextual Terms (similar to NLP keywords on Surfer AI), keyword density, and on-page SEO factors that you can automatically optimize after generating the article.
The best part is that Longform AI by SurgeGraph is much cheaper than Surfer AI. It costs $14.69/mo (on a 36-month plan) and lets you generate unlimited articles and keyword research—it’s one of the best unlimited AI writing tools out there.
Longform AI’s only downside is that it doesn’t include an anti-AI detection tool like Surfer AI.
So, if pricing is a primary concern, consider exploring Longform AI by SurgeGraph instead of Surfer AI.
Content at Scale
Content at Scale is a top undetectable AI writing tool that can also do its own research to generate entire articles undetectable by AI detectors.
Unlike Surfer AI, Content at Scale can also create blog posts and articles based on YouTube videos, podcasts, existing blogs, or audio files. This makes it repurposing content much easier.
Like Surfer AI, they have a plagiarism scanner powered by Copyscape that can check your article for uniqueness.
Additionally, Content at Scale includes internal and external links to valuable resources to increase the article’s quality. Surfer AI still doesn’t include links, but it’s a future update they will release soon.
However, Content at Scale pricing starts at $250/mo for 8 posts (that’s $31 for each post). But you can use their 7-day trial of $39.99 and get 1 credit to generate one blog post.
Read my Content at Scale review and Content at Scale tutorial to learn more.
Article Forge
Article Forge is an AI tool like no other—it doesn’t use GPT4 technology to create content. Instead, they use their own algorithms to produce high-quality content, also undetectable by AI content detectors.
With just a click of a button, Article Forge lets you create articles in bulk for your chosen keywords.
The best part is pricing starts at $13/mo for 25k words. With Article Forge, you can generate articles in bulk with up to 1.500 words each that pass the Copyscape plagiarism checker and automatically publish them to WordPress.
If you’re on the fence about joining Article Forge or Content at Scale, read my Article Forge vs. Content at Scale comparison.
You may also check my in-depth Article Forge review.
Surfer AI Benefits
Most AI writing tools available are based on ChatGPT prompters. Surfer AI, however, combines SERP analysis with NLP and generative AI models to cater to user intent and search engine ranking requirements.
Additionally, AI-generated content from competitors typically needs expert editing for search engine optimization before publishing. In contrast, Surfer AI’s articles are SEO-ready, as confirmed by the Content Editor’s Content Score.
The integration of SERP and NLP analysis ensures a better understanding and fulfillment of the end user’s intent.
Creating an entire article only takes a few clicks—simply set it up and let the tool do its job.
Conducting keyword research and preparing for an article is easily done through the Surfer dashboard, allowing you to plan an entire content calendar from one place.
Surfer AI Pros and Cons
Pros
- Generates highly SEO-optimized articles with a click of a button in minutes.
- Creates quality content for search engines based on the top SERPs.
- It writes long-form content with 2k-3k words on average (it depends on the SERPs).
- Great for generic topics.
- Passes AI content detectors.
- It offers a plagiarism checker, and the content is basically plagiarism-free (be sure to check with other tools).
Cons
- You must have an active Surfer SEO subscription.
- You can’t edit the previous wizard step after you go to the next step before generating the article. Check everything before clicking next.
- You still have to edit the content to make it more personal. For example, you can’t address the reader in the second person (something you can do with Copy AI’s chat).
Remember that Surfer AI is only an assistant, just like any other AI writer. Ensure you provide personal views, examples, and anecdotal examples to enrich your text and make it more engaging.
Additionally, fact-check everything!
Surfer AI FAQs
What is Surfer AI?
Surfer AI is a content optimization and SEO writing tool capable of generating an entire article in minutes. It does so by scraping content from the top-ranking pages on Google for a given keyword and developing a unique highly-optimized article.
What does Surfer AI do?
Surfer AI generates SEO-optimized articles in a matter of minutes. It’s one of the few long-form AI writers with integrated SEO capabilities.
How many words does a Surfer AI article have?
It depends on the SERPs. If the SERPs have a lot of information, the article will be longer; if short, it will have fewer words. In general, the output article will have between 2k and 3k words.
Is Surfer AI good for beginners?
Surfer AI is not for beginners. It’s for people with an established blog or website who want to scale up their SEO content efforts with a powerful AI writing assistant, allowing them to publish more articles per day.
However, if you’re a beginner with a budget, you might want to consider trying it out.
Can I use a brand voice in Surfer AI?
At the moment, no. However, they plan to incorporate more features into the AI in the future, including adding your brand voice.
Is there a standalone Surfer AI plan?
No. You must purchase at least the Lite plan of Surfer SEO and then top up with AI credits.
Does Surfer AI integrate with the Surfer SEO Chrome extension?
No. You can use Surfer AI in the Content Editor and then copy and paste the AI-generated article to your Google Doc.
Can I use Surfer AI with Jasper AI?
Surfer SEO still integrates with Jasper AI, so you can continue using Jasper’s SEO Mode with Surfer SEO. However, Surfer AI only works in Surfer’s Content Editor. Nonetheless, you may copy/paste the article that Surfer AI generated into Jasper and continue from there.
Surfer AI Review: My Verdict
Many users will find Surfer AI a great addition to their arsenal of AI tools, especially if they’re already Surfer SEO customers.
Surfer SEO’s features as an AI SEO tool were already excellent, but with the Surfer AI add-on, they created a giant amid AI tools for content creation.
So, if you’re serious about scaling up your content production with an SEO perspective, Surfer SEO + Surfer AI has everything you need to help you generate a content plan and increase your visibility.
I hope my Surfer AI review provided some insights to help you guide you on your AI blogging journey. If you’re unsure whether Surfer AI is a good option, try some alternatives—they won’t disappoint you.
