← Back to Verdict8

About the Founder

Stephen Steddy, Co-Founder, Sage8.AI

I'm a mechanic by trade. I know what it looks like when someone tells you the machine is fine and it isn't.

After a diesel apprenticeship and more than twenty years in mining maintenance and technical services, I spent my career rolling out systems so crews could stop guessing. Then AI arrived, and websites got a new problem: businesses can't tell whether ChatGPT or Perplexity will ever mention them.

So I built Verdict8 myself, end to end: the AI agent that reads and scores a live site, the reports and payments behind it, and the live checks that test whether AI engines actually surface you. It tells you where you stand, not where you'd like to.

I ran Verdict8 on its own site first and fixed what it found. Then I ran it on a real business site, found three faults quietly distorting the visibility score, and fixed them the same day.

The 8 started life as an infinity sign. There isn't one on a keyboard, so it stayed an 8. Outside work I raise guide dog puppies for Blind Low Vision Guide Dogs New Zealand. They don't flatter me either.

Read more on how the audit itself works, or head back to the homepage.