What we have designed and shipped.
Ask Zai is a self-configuring AI assistant: the user asks in plain language and the system chooses the model, connects the tools and does the job. No configuration files, no API keys, no prompt engineering.
Our scope: product design and positioning; the persona system; the desktop and web applications; the real-time voice pipeline; the generative interface layer; the tool and automation integrations; and the public product site.
Why it was hard: the product's whole promise is that the user never configures anything. Every default has to be right, every failure has to recover quietly, and every agent has to hand off cleanly without the user seeing the seams. Removing configuration is far more engineering than exposing it.
Live at askzai.co.uk.
Zai and four sisters, each with a fixed name, role, voice and personality. One handles research, one handles code review, one handles architecture and visual design, one handles fast execution — and Zai, the eldest, decides who is needed and carries the final say.
The design principle: personas are permanent, models are interchangeable. Model routing sits behind the persona, so the family can be re-pointed at better models as they ship and nothing changes for the user.
This is the piece we are proudest of, because it turns a confusing pile of agents into something a person can hold in their head — a team, with names.
Real-time speech in both directions with natural turn-taking, plus an interface that assembles itself around the task: ask for a comparison and get a comparison view, ask for a checklist and get a checklist.
Voice alone is poor for anything visual. A screen alone excludes anyone who cannot or would rather not type. Built together they cover the whole job.
Ask Zai's persistent memory and its safety layer are built on research from our sister company Mofy AI Ltd. Bonz-Ai's part is the applied end: making memory feel like continuity rather than a database, and making the safety layer visible to a parent without being oppressive to a user.