Koki

Koki was an AI-native networking app going up against feed-driven incumbents.

Agents ran first-layer due diligence between users before a connection or job placement was allowed. That meant asking people to trust a machine with an introduction. The product had to read as AI-first and trustworthy at the same time, and those two usually pull apart. Get that wrong and nobody hands a machine their network.

Duration: 8 months.

Category: AI.

Scope: Branding, App, Website.

Built the identity from scratch, since an agentic product had no visual precedent to borrow from

Designed the connection flow around the agent saying no, not around the agent looking clever

Replaced the feed with a sphere you pinch to expand, so users choose how far to look

Designed and built the marketing site on the same rules as the product

Held creative direction across brand and product, so trust reads the same in both

Ray Laracuenta, CEO, Hubmaker Labs, parent company of Koki

Every networking product is built to make more connections, faster. That's the category, and the obvious build is a feed that gets out of the way.

Koki added friction on purpose. The agent ran checks before allowing a connection, so the product told users no. Making that read as protection rather than obstruction was the job.

That's why the interface looks careful rather than impressive, and why there's no feed. We built the network as a sphere you pinch to expand, so users choose how far to look.

It costs discoverability, which is exactly what a feed is for. On a product asking people to trust an introduction, that was the right thing to give up.

Eight months from a blank page to a shipped mobile product, in a category with no visual precedent to borrow from. Brand, product and marketing site were designed as one system, and the agent-mediated connection flow was built from nothing. The sphere replaced the feed, and the friction stayed in on purpose.