Frequently asked questions
Short answers about the framework, the Canvas, and how companies use them.
Is my website the source of truth?
Not automatically.
Your website is Stated Reality: what you say about yourself. It can be stale or simply wrong, and errors on it tend to spread outward into databases, publications, search results and AI answers.
Verify important claims with the people who own them before treating any published page as the reference.
What is a claim?
A single fact about a company that can be checked: who founded it, what it sells, where it operates, who owns it, what it integrates with.
The framework works claim by claim, because a gap is almost always a specific fact that is wrong, stale, missing or contradicted somewhere.
Is this just SEO?
No.
Search is where the gap becomes visible, because it shows which version of you the internet can retrieve.
The gap itself is wider: your own published record, third-party sources, databases, knowledge graphs and AI systems all hold a version of you.
Is this the same as GEO or AI visibility?
No.
AI visibility asks whether you appear in AI answers.
The Digital Reality Gap asks whether the company being described is accurate.
Who should use it?
Founders, CEOs, CMOs, product marketers, communications teams, and the agencies and consultants who work with them.
It is most useful during positioning work, rebrands, category shifts, and migrations.
When should a company use the Canvas?
When the company has changed faster than the internet has.
Common moments:
- Repositioning
- Rebrand
- Website migration
- Category shift
- AI product launch
- Upmarket move
- Sales correcting the same misunderstanding
- AI describing the company incorrectly
- Buyers comparing you to the wrong competitors
What is the Digital Reality Check?
The open method for using the Canvas against live AI and search output.
You ask the questions your buyers ask, read your own public evidence, and compare both to your Canvas.
It produces a Canvas Readout, not a score. Free to run, no tools.
Can agencies, consultants, or companies use the framework?
Yes.
The framework and Canvas are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0: use, adapt, and share, including commercially, with attribution and ShareAlike.
How is this different from the Business Model Canvas?
The Digital Reality Canvas belongs to the same tradition of practical strategy tools, alongside the Business Model Canvas, SWOT, Wardley Maps, and Jobs to Be Done. Each shows a different part of the business.
This one answers a single question: is the company the internet describes the company you actually are?