Setting up a Project isn't just filling out a form. At almost every step, Gumshoe asks several AI models real questions about your brand, then combines and normalizes their answers to build what you see. Each step is a small diagnostic in its own right, and everything it surfaces becomes part of what your Project asks AI models when your Visibility Audit runs.
What happens at each step?
- Step 1, confirm your brand, location, language, and product category: the brand summary isn't boilerplate. Gumshoe asks several AI models to describe your brand in their own words and combines their answers. If something reads as off or outdated, that's a real clue about how AI currently understands you, and editing it here corrects the record before anything else is built on top of it. Your product category options come from the same process: AI models are asked what they see as your business's product categories, and the one you pick shapes every Persona and Prompt that follows. See Step 1: How do I confirm my brand, location, language, and product category?
- Step 2, choose your plan: this sets what your Project tracks after setup. Starter and Pro both start with 8 Personas, 10 Prompts per Persona, and 6 AI models, and either plan can grow beyond that with overage. Pro runs your Pulse Audit daily instead of weekly and adds the Content, Sentiment, and Citation Audits. See Step 2: Which plan should I choose when I set up a Project?
- Step 3, review your Personas and Prompts: Personas represent who AI models think your ideal customers are, built from the same multi-model process. Their Prompts are the questions AI models expect those customers to ask. Reviewing them shows you what AI already believes about your audience, and editing them refines what your Project will go on to ask. See Step 3: How do I review my Personas and Prompts?
- Step 4, select AI models and start your Project: the AI models you choose here are the ones your Visibility Audit will query, so this step is where you decide whose perspective you want to track. Your Pulse Audit runs on its own fixed set of models. See Step 4: How do I select AI models and start my Project?
Is what I see during setup just Gumshoe's opinion?
No. Every part of setup that Gumshoe fills in for you, from the brand summary and product categories to the Personas and Prompts, comes from asking multiple AI models and normalizing their answers. What you see reflects how AI models describe your brand and your buyers, not a view Gumshoe made up on its own.
Why does this matter for my results?
Every step is Gumshoe asking AI models a piece of the same question: how do you see this brand? Anything you edit during setup goes into your first Visibility Audit. Changes you make after setup are picked up on the next monthly run, so setup is the best moment to get your brand details, Personas, and Prompts right.
What should I do next?
Ready to set up? How do I start a Gumshoe project? walks you through all four steps.