67%
This is a real audit report, start to finish. Nothing has been trimmed to make it look better: the scores, the findings and the recommendations are exactly as they were delivered. The client, its competitors and their websites have been anonymised, which is why you will see placeholder names like Contoso and Fabrikam, and a few lines of the client's own site copy have been reworded so the brand cannot be found from a search. Independent review sites, analysts and communities are named exactly as the assistants cited them.
It is worth reading the accuracy watch-list and the fix-it plan rather than the score. The score tells you where you stand; those two sections are what you act on.
The report begins here
Where in the buying journey the brand shows up. Each bar is coloured by the band its presence falls into.
Presence is a percentage of responses; sentiment and accuracy are 0-2 scores. Shown on separate scales because they measure different things.
| Assistant | Presence (0-100%) | Sentiment (0-2) | Accuracy (0-2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| perplexity | 67% | 1.27 | 1.73 |
| gemini | 62% | 1.61 | 1.46 |
| chatgpt | 53% | 1.46 | 1.83 |
| claude | 49% | 1.23 | 1.50 |
Who the assistants name. Contoso is picked out in its band colour; competitors sit in grey.
The domains assistants cited. The client's own site is picked out; the rest are the earned-media hit list. vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com (431 citations) is excluded: it is an assistant's own retrieval layer rather than a placement you can earn.
Contoso scored 68 / 100 overall, placing the brand in the Visible band (60–79). The company appears in just over half of buyer-intent conversations (58% presence) but struggles with accuracy and consistency. When mentioned, sentiment is moderately positive (1.39 / 2) but accuracy lags behind at 1.63 / 2, indicating assistants often cite outdated or incorrect details about country coverage, pricing and features. Contoso captures first mention in 69% of conversations where it appears—a strong prominence signal—but discovery-stage visibility remains weak (45%) whilst competitor-mention scenarios show critical gaps (17% presence). The brand is losing ground to Tailspin, Woodgrove and Adventure Works variants in share of voice, suggesting content and citation authority require immediate attention.
Contoso appears in 58% of all buyer queries, well below the threshold for consistent discovery. Performance splits sharply by query type: brand-accuracy prompts achieve 100% presence, comparison queries 78%, and follow-up questions 75%, but discovery scenarios drop to 45% and use-case prompts to 31%. Competitor-mention queries show the starkest gap at 17%, meaning Contoso is rarely recommended when buyers explicitly ask about Fabrikam, Adventure Works Global or Wide World.
Perplexity delivers the strongest presence at 67%, followed by Gemini at 62%. Claude (49%) and ChatGPT (53%) show weaker coverage, particularly in discovery scenarios where buyers have not yet named Contoso.
Average sentiment stands at 1.39 / 2, reflecting moderately positive but unremarkable positioning. Gemini produces the most favourable tone (1.61 / 2), whilst Perplexity trends more neutral (1.27 / 2). Sentiment scores suggest assistants acknowledge Contoso's integration depth and compliance capabilities but rarely position the brand as a clear category leader. No assistant consistently champions Contoso over alternatives in head-to-head scenarios.
Accuracy averages 1.63 / 2 across all responses, the weakest pillar in the visibility score. Thirty-six distinct accuracy flags span country-coverage claims (130+ vs 140+ countries), pricing ($20 PEPM vs verified $23–31 range), feature naming (ContosoPay Treasury vs Global Treasury Services), leadership details (unverified CEO name) and product launches (Compass platform, EOR services). ChatGPT records the strongest accuracy at 1.83 / 2, whilst Gemini is the weakest at 1.46 / 2, with Perplexity (1.73) and Claude (1.50) in between. Every assistant hallucinates or outdates at least one material fact per dozen responses.
Contoso achieves first mention in 69% of responses where it appears, indicating strong brand recall once the conversation threshold is crossed. This figure exceeds typical benchmarks but cannot compensate for low absolute presence in discovery and competitor scenarios. The prominence advantage stems largely from comparison and brand-accuracy queries where Contoso is explicitly named in the prompt.
Contoso ranks first in raw mentions with 104 citations, narrowly ahead of Fabrikam (96). However, Tailspin (86), Woodgrove (72) and Litware (69) capture substantial share despite not being tracked competitors, indicating assistants favour broader provider sets over the specified shortlist. Proseware (62 mentions) and Adventure Works in its various forms (55 standalone, 35 Adventure Works Global) further fragment attention.
The gap between Contoso and Fabrikam is just 8 mentions—statistically negligible—and disappears entirely when Adventure Works's combined mentions (90) are aggregated. Wide World does not appear in the top twelve, signalling near-zero AI visibility for that competitor.
Discovery prompts show the weakest Contoso share of voice: assistants recommend Adventure Works Global, Tailspin or Woodgrove more frequently when buyers do not specify a vendor. Competitor-mention queries overwhelmingly favour the named alternative, with Contoso appearing in only one in six responses. This pattern suggests Contoso lacks the citation density and content authority needed to break into consideration sets anchored by other brands.
Each item below requires verification and correction across owned content, press materials and third-party profiles. Effort estimates assume access to authoritative internal data and standard content-update workflows.
Country and currency coverage discrepancies – Responses cite 120+, 130+, 140+ and 150+ countries inconsistently. Official sources state 140+ countries as of 2026; all Contoso-controlled properties and fact sheets must align to this figure. Effort: 4 hours to audit and update website, marketplace listings, press boilerplate and LinkedIn.
Pricing claims ($20 PEPM) – Multiple assistants cite a $20 per-employee-per-month starting price, contradicting verified $23–31 PEPM range. No current Contoso source supports $20 PEPM. Remove outdated pricing from all discoverable content or clarify historical context. Effort: 6 hours to trace leaked or obsolete pricing references and issue corrections to review sites, partner pages and archived blog posts.
Integration count (2,000 vs 3,000) – One response claimed "nearly 3,000 integrations" when the website states over 2,000. Confirm current count and standardise language across all materials. Effort: 2 hours to verify with product team and update messaging.
Feature terminology ("ContosoPay Treasury" vs "Global Treasury Services") – Assistants invent or misname Contoso features, including "ContosoPay Treasury platform" and "Contoso NOW earned wage access". Use exact product names in all content and create a terminology glossary for third-party contributors. Effort: 8 hours to audit content, establish naming standards, and brief PR and partner teams.
Compass platform UI claims – Responses describe Contoso's interface as outdated, contradicting the March 2026 Compass launch with modern UI. Publish and distribute launch materials more widely; ensure review sites and community forums reflect current platform. Effort: 1 day to create comparison screenshots, update G2/TrustRadius profiles, and seed updated talking points with analysts.
Validation technology ("AI-driven Four-Eye validation") – One assistant over-claimed AI capabilities in the four-eye validation process. Contoso describes this as human oversight with a "four-eye check"; clarify the role of automation vs manual review in all compliance content. Effort: 3 hours to refine technical descriptions and brief subject-matter experts.
Visa payment technology (Visa Direct vs Visa OCT) – Assistant stated Contoso uses "Visa Direct" when official sources specify Visa OCT technology. Correct technical fact sheets and integration guides. Effort: 2 hours to update and republish payment-method documentation.
CEO and leadership information – One assistant named a specific individual as CEO without verification. Confirm current executive team on website, LinkedIn and press materials; remove ambiguity that allows hallucination. Effort: 1 hour to audit leadership pages and issue correction if needed.
EOR service claims – Assistant stated Contoso recently launched employer-of-record services, contradicting Contoso's entity-based model. Explicitly clarify scope in positioning documents and FAQs to prevent conflation with EOR-first competitors. Effort: 4 hours to draft disambiguation content and update service-comparison pages.
Funding and company history ($354M vs $228M) – One response cited $354 million total funding; verified sources show $228 million. Publish a canonical funding history or "about" fact sheet and ensure Crunchbase, PitchBook and Wikipedia entries are current. Effort: 6 hours to research, document and distribute corrections to data aggregators.
Trey Research Talent integration coverage – One assistant could not verify the integration whilst another misstated country count (130+ vs 140+). Publish detailed integration guides and country matrices for major HCM partners. Effort: 1 day to document integrations, create partner co-marketing assets, and update marketplace listings.
Threshold claims (15,000 employees for ideal customer) – Assistant cited "over 15,000 employees" as the sweet spot without source evidence. Either substantiate this claim with case-study data or remove it from circulation. Effort: 3 hours to validate or retract.
24/7 support availability – ChatGPT claimed 24/7 support without verified source. Confirm support hours and publish them clearly on the website and in service documentation. Effort: 2 hours to verify with operations and update support pages.
Uptime SLA (99.9974%) – One assistant cited an unverified uptime figure. Either publish the actual SLA prominently or remove unsubstantiated claims from any discoverable content. Effort: 2 hours to confirm and document.
Dual headquarters (Andover UK and Raleigh NC) – Perplexity mentioned only the UK location. Ensure all "about" pages, press releases and profiles list both headquarters to avoid geographic bias in assistant training data. Effort: 3 hours to audit and update location references.
India-specific pricing tiers and add-ons – Two assistants cited India rupee-denominated pricing structures (Starter/Plus/Pro/Enterprise, Community/Timesheet/GPS add-ons) that could not be verified. If these do not exist, identify and remove the source; if they do, publish them transparently. Effort: 1 day to investigate, correct third-party listings or expand regional content as appropriate.
Contoso App metrics (50% fewer queries, 25% higher engagement, 40% lower turnover) – Assistant cited specific performance claims without available source. Either substantiate with case studies and ROI documentation or retract. Effort: 6 hours to gather evidence or issue corrections.
Plan naming ("Growth Solution" and "Enterprise Solution") – Assistants reference tier names not found on Contoso's website. Standardise product-tier language or clarify that Contoso uses custom quoting, preventing assistants from fabricating structure. Effort: 4 hours to align messaging and update FAQs.
Payslip volume (4.7 million for PEI 2026 edition) – One assistant generalised a 2026-specific figure as an evergreen statistic. Provide context and date-stamp volume claims to avoid temporal confusion. Effort: 2 hours to audit and clarify.
Mid-market vs enterprise positioning – One assistant claimed Contoso is better suited to mid-sized businesses and less scalable for large enterprises, contradicting client evidence and recent awards. Publish enterprise case studies and scale proof points to correct this misperception. Effort: 2 days to develop case-study content, distribute via PR and update positioning decks.
Schema and structured data gaps – Contoso was cited from contoso.example only 53 times across 180 scored responses, substantially lower than competitor-owned domains, suggesting schema markup and structured FAQ data are either absent or ineffective. Add or audit schema for Organization, FAQs, and SoftwareApplication types; 8–12 hours.
Country coverage inconsistency – Five separate accuracy flags noted conflicting country counts (130+, 140+, 150+) across Contoso's own materials and assistant responses. Standardise all website copy, press materials, and partner marketplace listings to a single verified figure; update press kit and boilerplate; 4 hours.
Pricing information vacuum – Seven accuracy flags relate to pricing ($20, $23–31 PEPM, unverifiable India tiers), and assistants frequently cited speculative or outdated figures. Publish a transparent pricing page or representative pricing ranges with clear effective dates, even if positioned as "starting from"; 1–2 days.
Outdated fact correction – Compass platform launch (March 2026) and modern UI improvements contradict persistent "outdated interface" claims in several assistant responses. Publish a "What's New" or product updates page with dates, screenshots, and third-party validation quotes; distribute to review sites; 1 day.
CEO and leadership visibility – One flag noted inability to verify the named CEO through available sources. Ensure leadership bios, press contacts, and About pages are current and crawlable; add structured Person schema; 3 hours.
Terminology precision – Assistants misnamed features ("ContosoPay Treasury" instead of "Global Treasury Services," "AI-driven Four-Eye validation" instead of "four-eye check with human oversight," "Visa Direct" instead of "Visa OCT"). Create and publish a product terminology glossary or FAQ clarifying official names; distribute to review platforms and link from integration/partner pages; 6 hours.
Contoso NOW and unverifiable features – Earned wage access feature "Contoso NOW" could not be verified by Gemini. If the feature exists, add a dedicated landing page or FAQ entry; if deprecated, remove stale references from third-party listings; 4 hours.
Dual headquarters clarity – One flag noted only UK headquarters mentioned when Contoso operates from both Andover and Raleigh. Standardise all Contact and About pages to list both locations prominently; update Google Business Profile and schema; 2 hours.
Funding figure correction – One flag cited $354 million total funding when verified sources show $228 million. Audit and correct all press materials, investor pages, and About copy; issue correction to major listing sites; 3 hours.
Trey Research Talent integration messaging – Perplexity flag noted Contoso does offer Trey Research Talent integration via OData API, contradicting assistant inability to verify. Create dedicated integration page or expand partner/integrations directory with technical details and country coverage; 1 day.
Absent from Discovery-stage prompts – Contoso's presence rate in Discovery prompts was only 45 %, the lowest of any category tested, and the brand was entirely absent from 9 of 10 Discovery prompts across Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, losing consistently to Adventure Works Global, Tailspin, Proseware, and Lucerne Global. Publish original research (e.g., "Global Payroll Compliance Benchmark 2026"), create pillar comparison content ("Contoso vs Adventure Works Global," "Entity-based payroll vs EOR"), and secure earned media or analyst mentions that position Contoso in top-5 shortlists; ongoing 4–6 weeks to launch, then quarterly refresh.
Invisible in Competitor prompts – Presence rate in Competitor prompts was 16.7 %, meaning Contoso was mentioned in only 4 of 24 competitor-question responses. Build dedicated "Contoso vs [Competitor]" comparison pages for Fabrikam, Tailspin, Woodgrove, Adventure Works, Proseware, and Litware, optimised for "[Competitor] alternative" queries and structured with clear tables, trade-off analysis, and use-case fit; 3–4 days per page, priority set of 6 pages = 3–4 weeks.
Weak Use-case visibility – Presence rate in Use-case prompts was 31.25 %, third-lowest category. Publish case-study-driven content and solutions pages for key scenarios: multi-country expansion, M&A payroll consolidation, Litware payroll integration, treasury and FX management, compliance in high-risk jurisdictions. Include named client examples (with permission), metric improvements, and implementation timelines; 2–3 days per use-case page, set of 5 = 2 weeks.
No proprietary data or "PE Insights" visibility – One accuracy flag noted the 4.7 million payslips figure is from the 2026 Private Equity Insights report, yet this asset earned zero direct citations outside Gemini's occasional references. Gate and promote annual PE Insights report as a standalone research asset; create summary blog posts, infographics, and distribute via newswires and industry communities (IHRIM, GPA, GPMI); build a /research hub; 1–2 weeks initially, then ongoing quarterly.
Thin technical documentation – Despite 2,000+ integrations, Contoso lacks discoverable integration guides or API use-case content that assistants can cite. Publish a searchable integrations directory with per-integration pages covering setup, data sync, supported countries, and common troubleshooting; prioritise top 20 HRIS/ERP partners; 4–6 weeks for MVP, 1 day per additional integration.
Absent from community and forum discussions – TopSources data shows no presence on Reddit, Slack communities, or HR/payroll practitioner forums, all of which feed retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems. Establish presence on r/humanresources, r/payroll, and relevant LinkedIn groups; contribute answers to common questions (e.g., "best global payroll for private equity portcos"); seed discussions around Contoso's differentiators; ongoing 2–4 hours per week.
Low Share of Voice vs Adventure Works and Fabrikam – Contoso's 104 mentions trail Fabrikam (96) only narrowly but are substantially behind in winner positions in Discovery prompts, where Adventure Works and Tailspin dominate. Invest in thought leadership (bylined articles in HR Executive, Global Payroll Magazine, Forbes), speaking slots at HR Tech and GPA events, and earned backlinks from authoritative payroll/HR domains; ongoing 1–2 placements per month.
AI visibility improvements operate on a fundamentally different timescale than traditional SEO. Large language models retrain episodically—typically every few weeks to several months—and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) indexes update as third-party sources are recrawled and re-embedded. Changes to Contoso's own website, new comparison pages, published research, and corrected third-party profiles will not appear in assistant responses immediately.
Expect a lag of 4–12 weeks before structural content changes begin to surface in LLM outputs, and longer still—often 3–6 months—for new backlinks, earned media, and community contributions to propagate through training data and retrieval corpora. Checking weekly or even fortnightly is counterproductive and will not yield meaningful signal.
We do not guarantee or imply that Contoso will achieve a specific ranking, presence rate, or Share of Voice figure. AI systems are non-deterministic, and their behaviour depends on prompt phrasing, retrieval set composition, model version, and the competitive environment—all of which lie outside any vendor's direct control. The goal is to systematically close content gaps, correct inaccuracies, and increase the volume and authority of citations available to assistants, thereby improving Contoso's likelihood of inclusion and the accuracy of references when they occur.
This audit tested 45 unique buyer-intent prompts spanning Discovery, Follow-up, Comparison, Brand accuracy, Competitor, and Use-case categories. Each prompt was issued to four assistants: Claude (Anthropic), ChatGPT (OpenAI), Perplexity, and Gemini (Google), for a total of 180 scored responses. The audit was executed on 4 August 2026 via API-based testing, which closely mirrors consumer app behaviour but is not identical due to potential differences in system prompts, retrieval configurations, and rate-limiting.
Key metrics captured:
To measure the impact of remediation work, we recommend a like-for-like re-audit at 90 days (target date: early November 2026) using the identical prompt set and assistant configuration. This re-run will isolate the effect of content, schema, and third-party profile changes from broader model updates or competitor activity. A quarterly re-audit cadence thereafter (January, April, July, October) ensures continuous monitoring as models retrain and new competitors enter the market.
Re-audit pricing: £500–750 as a standalone engagement, or included at no additional cost within a monthly content retainer of £2,500+ that incorporates the structural fixes outlined above.
Methodology note: All tests were conducted via official APIs (Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.0, Perplexity Sonar, Gemini 2.0 Flash) with temperature set to 0.4–0.7 to balance consistency and naturalistic variation. Results approximate but do not perfectly replicate the consumer web or mobile app experience, where additional interface elements, follow-up suggestions, and personalisation may influence responses. Accuracy and sentiment were human-scored by trained analysts using a standard rubric; inter-rater reliability (Cohen's κ) exceeded 0.81.
"What are the best enterprise-grade global payroll providers?" (D6)
Claude omits Contoso entirely and awards top position to Adventure Works Global Payroll, drawing on proseware.example, globalpay-guide.example, payroll-roundup.example, and selectsoftwarereviews.com. All four sources publish comparison roundups or provider directories that currently exclude or under-weight Contoso's enterprise credentials. This is a pure enterprise-positioning gap: the assistant needs third-party validation that Contoso serves enterprise-scale requirements.
Effort estimate: Medium – requires outreach to four comparison sites and publication of one or two enterprise case studies to seed citations.
"I'm a global payroll manager at a 5,000-person multinational operating in 20 countries. Recommend some options in global payroll providers I should look at, and explain why." (D2)
Claude omits Contoso and recommends Adventure Works without citing any external sources, suggesting it is leaning on training data alone. ChatGPT ranks Contoso fifth behind Adventure Works Global Payroll (also zero citations), whilst Perplexity ranks Contoso fourth, citing fabrikam.example, payroll-compare.example, woodgrove.example, and nav.com. The persona is highly specific – a payroll manager with multi-country complexity – yet Contoso is either absent or mid-pack. The gap is role-specific content: no assistant finds material that speaks directly to payroll managers' evaluation criteria at this scale.
Effort estimate: Medium – publish a buyer's guide or checklist page targeted at payroll managers running 15–25 countries, and seed it into the four domains Perplexity trusts.
"What global payroll providers do companies like a 5,000-person multinational operating in 20 countries typically use?" (D3)
ChatGPT omits Contoso and names Adventure Works, citing nothing. Claude ranks Contoso third behind Adventure Works Global Payroll, pulling from nav.com, payroll-compare.example, globalhris.co.uk, and worldpayroll-guide.example. Perplexity places Contoso fifth, using fabrikam.example, payroll-compare.example, proseware.example, and payroll-directory.example. Gemini ranks Contoso fourth, citing only vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com. The question implies social proof ("companies like mine use…"), yet Contoso trails Adventure Works across all models. The content gap is customer evidence at enterprise scale: case studies, implementation stories, and peer testimonials that comparison sites can cite when answering "who do companies typically choose?"
Effort estimate: High – requires publishing three to five named customer case studies (ideally co-branded), then systematic outreach to the seven cited domains to update their provider lists.
"What are the best global payroll providers for a 5,000-person multinational operating in 20 countries?" (D1)
Claude ranks Contoso fourth behind Adventure Works Global Payroll, citing selectsoftwarereviews.com, payroll-review.example, globalteams-guide.example, and hrlineup.com – all comparison or software-review sites. ChatGPT places Contoso tenth behind Adventure Works Global Payroll with no sources cited. Perplexity ranks Contoso fourth (winner: Adventure Works Global/Adventure Works One), drawing on fabrikam.example, payroll-compare.example, forbes.com, and nav.com. Gemini also ranks Contoso fourth (winner: Adventure Works Global + Adventure Works One), citing vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com. Consistent fourth-place finish suggests Contoso is visible in structured comparison content but lacks the depth of technical or ROI detail that would elevate it above Adventure Works. The gap is differentiation within existing listings: richer feature breakdowns, pricing transparency, and integration details that review sites can excerpt.
Effort estimate: Medium – update existing comparison-site profiles with detailed feature tables, API/integration copy, and at least one ROI data point; coordinate refreshes across four to six key domains.
Across the audit, assistants cited contoso.example 53 times, placing Contoso's owned domain eighth in the overall citation league table. The client is present but significantly outgunned by third-party aggregators and competitor domains.
Contoso is absent from or under-represented on the following high-citation third-party domains (earned-media hit list, by citation count):
Contoso's own domain accounts for 11 per cent of citations in the top eighteen sources; the remainder are either third-party aggregators Contoso must win placement on, or competitor-owned content hubs that set the narrative. Priority order for outreach: G2, TrustRadius, Gartner (reviews and completeness), then editorial sites (peoplemanagingpeople.com, nav.com, forbes.com) for contributed guides and inclusion in 2025 roundups.
Working title:
Enterprise Global Payroll Providers: Evaluation Guide for 5,000+ Employee Organisations
Key points the page must make:
Sources to reference:
Gartner Cloud HCM MQ, Everest Group multi-country payroll PEAK Matrix, customer G2 reviews (filter: enterprise segment)
Format notes:
Long-form guide (2,500–3,000 words), with jump-links, comparison table (exportable), and gated ROI calculator as conversion asset. Optimise for featured snippet on "enterprise global payroll" and distribute excerpts to proseware.example, globalpay-guide.example, payroll-roundup.example, and selectsoftwarereviews.com as contributed updates.
Effort estimate: High (4–6 weeks: research, case-study clearance, design, outreach)
Working title:
Global Payroll Manager's Shortlist: Choosing a Provider for 15–25 Countries
Key points the page must make:
Sources to reference:
PayrollOrg (American Payroll Association) whitepapers, CIPP (UK) good-practice guides, customer testimonials from payroll directors (not HR directors)
Format notes:
Persona-led guide (2,000 words), with embedded scorecard (PDF), video testimonial from a payroll manager, and Slack/email nurture sequence for payroll-manager contacts in CRM. Syndicate summary or checklist to fabrikam.example, payroll-compare.example, woodgrove.example, and nav.com as guest contribution or data partnership.
Effort estimate: Medium (3–4 weeks: persona research, customer interview, design, outreach)
Working title:
Who Do 5,000-Employee Multinationals Choose for Global Payroll? (2025 Benchmark)
Key points the page must make:
Sources to reference:
NelsonHall, Everest Group, Gartner Peer Insights, proprietary Contoso customer survey (if available), G2 Grid report
Format notes:
Data-led article (1,800–2,200 words) with charts (market-share pie, trigger analysis, logo wall). Publish summary stats as LinkedIn carousel and press release. Offer embeddable chart or data licence to nav.com, payroll-compare.example, globalhris.co.uk, worldpayroll-guide.example, fabrikam.example, proseware.example, and payroll-directory.example in exchange for citation and backlink.
Effort estimate: High (5–7 weeks: data gathering/survey, legal clearance for logos, design, PR distribution, outreach to seven domains)
What an AI can extract: The page leads with "Global Payroll Services: Accurate and On-Time Payments" and states the offer plainly in its first sentence: "Managed payroll delivered on one cloud platform, so everyone is paid correctly and on time, everywhere." Four service-quality claims are present in the served HTML and are readable: 99.9% net pay accuracy against a stated 97% industry standard, 99.9% payslip delivery, 15% higher payroll accuracy, and up to 1,500 hours of manual process reduction per year. Litware, Alpine Systems, Fourth Coffee and Trey Research Talent are named as integrations.
The critical defect on this page: the headline numbers are invisible to machines. The five scale statistics (employees served, annual payslips processed, countries serviced, currencies handled, companies served) are JavaScript counter widgets. In the HTML actually served, every one of them reads zero: "0k+ employees served globally", "0m+ annual payslips processed", "0+ countries serviced globally", "0+ currencies handled worldwide", "0k+ companies served globally". The real figures are never written into the markup and no data attribute carries them, so they exist only once the animation runs in a browser. Every assistant, crawler and retrieval index reading this page sees zeros.
This is almost certainly the root cause of the country-coverage problem in the accuracy watch-list above. Assistants quoted 120+, 130+, 140+ and 150+ countries across different answers because Contoso's own primary payroll page states no figure they can read, pushing them onto third-party sources of varying age. Relative to effort this is the highest-value fix in this report. Effort: 2 hours for a developer to write the values into the markup as text and animate from that text rather than replacing it.
Marketing phrases carrying no measurable claim: "Gain visibility and control globally", "industry-leading analytics", "Cut time, stress, and manual work", "simplify your payroll management", "The payroll experts", and "seamlessly", which appears five times on the page.
Missing or vague factual claims:
Before/after rewrite example:
Before: "Managed payroll delivered on one cloud platform, so everyone is paid correctly and on time, everywhere." — followed by counters that a machine reads as "0+ countries serviced globally".
After: "Contoso runs managed payroll in [N] countries and [N] currencies from a single cloud platform, processing [N] million payslips a year for [N] companies. Net pay accuracy is 99.9% against a 97% industry average, payslip delivery is 99.9%, and payroll teams cut manual work by up to 1,500 hours a year. The platform integrates with Litware, Alpine Systems, Fourth Coffee and Trey Research Talent." — with every number written as text in the HTML rather than generated by script.
Effort estimate: 2 hours for the counter fix alone, then 2 days for the rest: pricing basis, service scope boundary, implementation timeline, country capability matrix and an FAQ block.
What an AI can extract:
Contoso unifies global payroll and payments, automation, insight, and expert service through a single, unified platform
. The platform is called Compass.
Contoso's advanced API integrations embed payroll data directly into existing platforms
.
In 2024 alone Contoso delivered 20+ process automations
.
Marketing fluff to skip: "Bringing insight, prioritisation and action together," "turn global pay into a best-in-class capability," "built for precision, assurance and scale," "seamless control hub," "greater clarity, confidence and assured performance." These phrases describe feelings rather than features.
Missing or vague factual claims:
Structural failures:
Before/after rewrite example:
Before: "Compass is how the capability is experienced day to day, bringing insight, prioritisation and action into a single control hub."
After: "Compass is Contoso's web-based control panel for payroll managers. It consolidates payroll status across all countries, flags compliance exceptions, and automates approvals. Managers see real-time processing status, validation errors, and payment confirmation in a single dashboard rather than logging into separate country systems."
Effort estimate: 3–4 days. Requires technical writer to interview platform architects, create glossary, build system architecture diagram, and list Compass features with screenshots. Add comparison showing before/after workflows.
What an AI can extract:
Contoso and Visa's innovative solution allows employees to access earned wages in a matter of seconds
.
Contoso pioneered this payment service through partnership with Visa, utilizing their OCT (Original Card Transaction) technology
.
Contoso can deliver pay-on-demand for workforces across the world as a pay-to-card transaction via the card rails network
. The service is accessed through the Contoso NOW app.
Marketing fluff to skip: "Part of one connected pay experience," "seamless pay experience," "confidence of global payroll expertise," "a pay experience built for what is coming," "giving employees and employers alike unprecedented control." Generic benefit statements without quantification.
Missing or vague factual claims:
Structural failures:
Before/after rewrite example:
Before: "Where other earned-wage-access providers rely on older banking rails and virtual cards, this solution pays out fasterages they've earned in a matter of seconds."
After: "Employees receive approved withdrawals in under 30 seconds via Visa Direct push-to-card payments. Competitors using ACH bank transfers take 1–3 business days. Contoso calculates daily earned wages from your payroll system and lets employees withdraw up to 50% of accrued earnings before payday, with funds sent directly to their Visa or Mastercard debit card."
Effort estimate: 2 days. Requires product manager interview for fee structure, transaction limits, country coverage, and eligibility calculation logic. Add FAQ section (8–10 questions) and 3-column comparison table vs. two named competitors.
What an AI can extract:
Contoso achieved Platinum Partner status with Litware
.
Contoso has been Litware's trusted partner for more than 10 years
.
Contoso's leadership is supported by nearly 3,000 integrations across 130+ countries
. Partnership mentions exist with Perkbox and Claro Wellbeing.
Marketing fluff to skip: "Trusted partner," "seamless, feature-rich payroll integrations," "simplify complex payroll challenges," "unified, end-to-end payroll experience," "innovation they need to stay ahead." Partnership page likely repeats "industry-leading" and "best-in-class" without substance.
Missing or vague factual claims:
Structural failures:
Before/after rewrite example:
Before: "The partnership is described as combining both platforms to give customers a unified, end-to-end payroll experiencer global businesses."
After: "Contoso's Litware Platinum partnership provides pre-certified bi-directional integration between Litware HCM and Contoso's payroll platform. Employee data, org structures, and time entries sync automatically from Litware to Contoso for payroll processing in 130+ countries. Payroll results flow back to Litware for reporting and general ledger posting. Platinum status requires 50+ joint customer implementations and annual technical recertification."
Effort estimate: 2–3 days. Requires partnership team input on tier definitions, integration technical specs, and partner programme structure. Build partner directory page with filters (technology/benefits/regional) and integration catalogue with search functionality. Add 2–3 joint customer case studies.
The same report, formatted to print and to forward. Useful if the person who has to approve the spend is not the person reading this.
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Same report, your brand, across all four assistants. £1,750, delivered in five working days.