Project DAVOS – AI Delegate Matching Assistant for Polkadot OpenGov
Summary:
Delegates are challenging to choose and track, resulting in misaligned or inactive governance participation.
Project DAVOS is an AI-powered governance assistant that helps Polkadot users match with the right delegate based on shared values (Ethos) and delegate voting history.
We are requesting $25,000 (in 2 milestones over 6 weeks) to transform our mockup and validated concept into a working MVP, enabling delegate-user matching, user profile generation, and governance insights through a functional interface.
Problem:
Delegation in OpenGov is technically simple, but practically difficult. Users are faced with a list of delegate addresses and minimal context. They must manually research forum threads, track participation, and guess alignment on critical issues such as treasury management, technical upgrades, or community priorities. As a result, many token holders either delegate blindly, not at all, or to popular names without understanding their governance style. This contributes to low engagement and misaligned delegation.
What is Project DAVOS?
Project**** DAVOS (Decentralized Autonomous VOting System) is an AI-powered platform designed to enhance participation in Polkadot's OpenGov by making delegation smarter, more transparent and value-aligned. Users define their governance Ethos (either through templates or natural language), and DAVOS matches them to compatible delegates using AI-generated profiles derived from historical voting behavior. It also offers proposal Digests and reasoning Insights to reduce the time and complexity of staying informed.
This is the first iteration of DAVOS. The long-term goal is to build a fully reliable, auditable governance agent to support both token holders and delegates across ecosystems.
DAVOS is not designed to replace governance discussions: rather, it strengthens them. It improves matchmaking between users and delegates to:
- Helps users understand delegate values, through analysis and insights from past actions and votes
- Makes delegates’ behavior and values easier to understand, helping them reach aligned supporters
- Enhance understanding of OpenGov trends and alignment
We’ve already built a mockup, check it out!
Project DAVOS was first pitched during AAG 234 (link).
We've validated the problem and solution through conversations and feedback within the Polkadot ecosystem and with other relevant DAOs in different ecosystems.
With this specific funding, we aim to develop and release a functional MVP that allows users to define their governance profile (Ethos), discover aligned delegates, and understand delegate behavior through summarized voting insights.
Milestones & Deliverables:
Milestone 1: Delegate + User Ethos Profiling MVP
- User Ethos, with the interface for selecting among different profiles or providing personal input through a prompt
- Delegate political profile and Ethos, based on on-chain voting history and information publicly available
- Matching algorithm, between the user and the delegate ethos
- Digest summary format (daily/monthly), with summary of the ongoing/recent discussion
- First UI prototype
Delivery timeline: 3 weeks from funding
Funding Requested: $15,000
Milestone 2: Expanded Matching & Governance Dashboard
- Enhanced configurability of the matching logic between the user and the delegate ethos
- Integration of active OpenGov referenda and delegates' votes
- UX improvements based on user feedback
- Finalize MVP, dashboard, and delegate profiles
Delivery timeline: 3 weeks after Milestone 1
Funding Requested: $10,000
Budget Breakdown:
This proposal covers the development of the DAVOS MVP. A future proposal will be submitted to support the production-ready version with expanded features.
Please find here the cost breakdown: Project DAVOS cost breakdown
| Milestone | Category | Hourly Rate | Hours | FTEs | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Technical Work | $120 | 100 | 2 | $12,000 |
| 1 | Project Management | $120 | 25 | 1 | $3,000 |
| Milestone 1: | $15,000 | ||||
| 2 | Technical Work | $120 | 68 | 2 | $8,160 |
| 2 | Project Management | $120 | 9 | 1 | $1,080 |
| 2 | Marketing | $100 | 10 | 1 | $1,000 |
| Milestone 2: | $10,240 | ||||
| Grand Total: | $25,240 |
Each milestone payment will be subject to verification of the milestone.
Team:
Our team is complete and deeply experienced in smart contract development and DAO infrastructure. The team includes:
- Matteo – Business Developer: Focused on ecosystem design and DAO integrations. Former PM at pNetwork. Leads DAVOS’s governance strategy and community engagement.
- Thomas – Lead Protocol Engineer: A pioneer in decentralized finance and oracle systems, with a strong background in DAO tooling and governance infrastructure. Led the strategy and development of onchain voting, identity, and treasury management systems across multiple networks.
- Enrico – Full Stack & Protocol Developer: Frontend/backend contributor to AI UX flows, DAO dashboards, and privacy-preserving agent infrastructure using TEEs.
- Marco – Senior DevOps Engineer: Maintains secure infrastructure for blockchain services. Expert in Kubernetes, CI/CD, and blockchain node orchestration.
Call for Feedback:
We welcome community comments and suggestions to strengthen this proposal.
Please share your thoughts and questions on the scope, milestones, and funding.
Comments (1)
Thank you for submitting this proposal — the DAVOS concept is both timely and highly relevant, especially in addressing the user experience and alignment issues in Polkadot’s OpenGov. I believe this has strong potential to improve both transparency and participation.
Here are a few suggestions that may help strengthen the MVP and overall impact:
Currently, DAVOS focuses on on-chain voting history. It might be beneficial to enrich delegate profiles with off-chain activity such as forum participation, discussions on Discord/X, or thought leadership in governance-related spaces. This would give users a more holistic understanding of a delegate’s ethos.
Consider adding a notification feature (e.g. email or Telegram bot) to alert users when their matched delegate is voting on a proposal, or when their stance diverges significantly. This can help users stay engaged beyond the initial matching process.
Instead of a single alignment score, you could break it down into thematic categories (e.g. treasury policy, privacy, infrastructure, etc.). This would help users understand why a delegate is a good match, not just who is.
Including brief interactive explanations for key governance concepts (“What is a referendum?”, “Why delegate?”, “How does my vote matter?”) could make DAVOS much more accessible to newcomers and increase long-term adoption.
As DAVOS matures, consider making it portable and open-source for use in other ecosystems (e.g. Kusama, Cosmos, Ethereum DAOs). This would broaden its value and encourage cross-ecosystem collaboration.
Overall, I strongly support this proposal. It addresses a clear UX gap in OpenGov and adds real value to both token holders and delegates. Looking forward to seeing the MVP in action — great work so far!
@IrfanComel05 thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback and support. Really appreciated! Here are our responses to each of your suggestions:
Thanks again, let me know if you have further comments or questions :)