# DIREKT World-Class and AI-Native Product Direction Decision

**Date:** 2026-07-21  
**Status:** Accepted for planning and VC1–VC8 implementation sequencing; production AI providers/use cases remain separately gated  
**Owner direction:** Modernize the completed functional product toward world-class marketplace quality and make AI a critical cross-feature capability without rebuilding the backend/integration foundation.

## Context

DIREKT has a comparatively mature backend, trust, privacy, integration and cross-client functional foundation, but its visible customer/provider/operations experiences remain materially less polished than leading global local-service marketplaces.

The product also needs an explicit AI architecture so AI is designed into discovery, provider enablement, support and operations rather than added later as an isolated chatbot.

## Decision

Adopt a composite benchmark and an eight-stage modernization programme.

### Benchmark stack

- Urban Company for marketplace/service-professional maturity;
- Checkatrade for recurring trust checks and customer-facing trust proposition;
- Taskrabbit for short task-to-provider/action flow;
- Thumbtack for AI-guided natural-language/multimodal service discovery;
- DIREKT's own differentiation in check-specific proof, privacy-by-precision, payment-independent trust, Zambia resilience and human-accountable operations.

### Programme

- VC1: design-system reconciliation;
- VC2: high-fidelity benchmark directions and explicit owner approval;
- VC3: approved Design DNA/component foundation;
- VC4: customer world-class experience;
- VC5: provider professional workspace;
- VC6: operations mission control;
- VC7: AI intelligence layer;
- VC8: world-class visual/product/AI quality gate.

### AI authority model

AI may interpret, classify, suggest, summarize, extract, draft and rank within approved bounds.

AI may not autonomously:

- authorize access;
- approve/reject/revoke/suspend verification;
- publish trust claims;
- decide serious complaints/appeals;
- alter financial ledger/reconciliation truth;
- make legal conclusions;
- expose restricted evidence;
- execute unrestricted tools or database/storage/admin actions.

## Alternatives considered

### Copy one global marketplace

Rejected. No single product matches DIREKT's trust, privacy, informal/mobile-provider and Zambia-specific operating model.

### Visual redesign only

Rejected. It would improve appearance without resolving AI-native discovery/operations opportunities or defining safe model authority.

### AI chatbot as a standalone feature

Rejected. A generic chatbot does not address the highest-value AI opportunities in search, onboarding, evidence assistance, operations and support, and can create excessive-agency/privacy risk.

### AI-first autonomous trust operations

Rejected. Probabilistic models cannot become the final authority for high-impact trust, complaint, payment or legal decisions.

## Consequences

- Design work must use the approved benchmark/Design DNA rather than ad-hoc aesthetic changes.
- AI requires a backend orchestration boundary and source-controlled use-case governance.
- AI model/provider activation becomes an integration-status concern and cannot be inferred from planning or credentials.
- Manual/deterministic fallbacks remain mandatory for core journeys.
- Restricted evidence is not sent to external AI providers by default.
- VC8 adds AI evaluation/security gates to visual/accessibility/regression gates.
- Phase 11 real pilot and Phase 12 production gates remain unchanged and cannot be cleared by VC work alone.

## References

- `docs/product/WORLD_CLASS_PRODUCT_AND_AI_PLAN.md`
- `docs/design/VISUAL_COMPLETION_PLAN.md`
- `docs/architecture/AI_PRODUCT_ARCHITECTURE.md`
- `docs/product/PRODUCT_REQUIREMENTS.md`
- `DEFINITION_OF_DONE.md`
- Issue #259