About Decision Surface Group
A governance-methodology firm for organizations that run AI agents. We connect what you intend, what your agents do, and the evidence of how authority was exercised.
Why we are called Decision Surface
In topology, a surface is the manifold on which something exists: the shape of a possibility space. It is not a tool. It is not a method. It is the terrain itself.
Every regulated institution operates on this terrain. Choices, authorities, constraints, evidence, consequences: the terrain across which directors, examiners, officers, and now AI agents move every day. This existed before AI was deployed inside the institution. It exists in institutions where AI is absent. It is the territory of governance itself.
We named the firm after that territory. Not after a tool used to map it. Not after a feature of any product. After the territory.
AI does not change the territory. It changes how fast institutions move across it, and how visible, or invisible, the path becomes. Governing that movement is the work of our methodology, the Three-System Model. The Trust Harness is how we put its controls in place. The firm is named for what governance is about. The Trust Harness is named for what governance is for.
People
Neil W. Smith
Founder and principal
Neil founded Decision Surface Group and leads its work with executive teams on governing AI agents.
How we work
Vendor-neutral
We work with whatever agents and platforms you run.
Claims you can test
We do not offer guarantees. We tell you what each control should catch and how to measure whether it does.
Alongside your counsel
We work with your general counsel, not instead of them. Nothing we provide is legal advice.
Evidence over narrative
Records made at the time carry more weight than accounts written afterwards, so we build for the record.
The Three-System Model draws on management cybernetics, in particular Stafford Beer's Viable System Model.