# Product Roadmap: Personal Briefing Feed

**Date:** 2026-02-21  
**Owner:** Product track (knowledge workers + consumers)  
**Status:** Draft for execution

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## Vision

Ship a daily briefing product that helps users identify what matters now, adapt the feed instantly with lightweight feedback, and trust the results enough to return habitually.

## Product Thesis

People do not need another infinite feed. They need a controllable, high-signal briefing that respects time, explains relevance, and improves immediately from feedback.

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## Milestone Summary

| # | Name | Proves | Depends On |
|---|------|--------|------------|
| P0 | Beachhead Validation | Users care enough to return for a daily briefing | M0 + partial M1 |
| P1 | Concierge Alpha | Briefing usefulness and immediate adaptation in a narrow segment | M1 + partial M2 |
| PG1 | Personalization Core Done (Blocking Gate) | Core personalization loop is correct, immediate, and meaningfully better than baseline | P1 + M1/M2/M3 core slices |
| P2 | Productized Beta | Self-serve onboarding, trust UX, and repeatability without manual curation | M2 + partial M3 |
| P3 | Public Launch | Reliability, quality floor, and trust controls at public volume | M3 + M5 core + M6 partial |
| P4 | Scale + Revenue Fit | Sustainable growth and monetization without quality collapse | M6 + M7 |

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## Current Status

| Phase | Status |
|-------|--------|
| p0: Beachhead Validation | NOT STARTED |
| p1: Concierge Alpha | NOT STARTED |
| pg1: Personalization Core Done gate | NOT STARTED |
| p2: Productized Beta | NOT STARTED |
| p3: Public Launch | NOT STARTED |
| p4: Scale + Revenue Fit | NOT STARTED |

**Current phase:** p0 (Beachhead Validation)

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## Milestone P0: Beachhead Validation

### Milestone Thesis

Validate that a personal briefing feed solves a painful daily job for target users and creates early repeat usage.

### Done When

- 20-50 users recruited in target segment.
- Daily briefing prototype used for 2+ weeks.
- Median user gives at least one feedback action per session.
- Interview evidence confirms value over baseline feeds.
- D2 and D7 retention meet agreed threshold.

### Phase Plan

- Phase 1: Target Segment and Research Ops
- Phase 2: Concierge Briefing Loop
- Phase 3: Signal and Retention Evaluation

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## Milestone P1: Concierge Alpha

### Milestone Thesis

Deliver a high-value daily `Today Brief` with transparent reasons and immediate feedback reflection for a narrow cohort.

### Done When

- Ranked briefing cards with source links and reason labels are live.
- `more/less/hide/mute/save` controls are available and used.
- Next refresh visibly reflects negative feedback.
- Time-budget mode (`5/10/20`) is used by pilot users.
- Weekly active usage indicates repeated utility.

### Phase Plan

- Phase 1: Briefing UX and Reason Labels
- Phase 2: Feedback Controls and Real-Time Adaptation
- Phase 3: Quality and Diversity Guardrails

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## Milestone P2: Productized Beta

### Milestone Thesis

Turn concierge alpha into a self-serve product with stable onboarding and trust-preserving defaults.

### Done When

- Onboarding can be completed in under 3 minutes.
- Cohort layer (`trending for people like you`) is available.
- Explanations are clear and consistent per card.
- D7 retention and useful-item rate beat baseline.
- Manual curation is no longer required for normal operation.

### Blocking Prerequisite

P2 cannot start until **PG1 Personalization Core Done** passes.

### Phase Plan

- Phase 1: Self-Serve Onboarding and Profile Bootstrapping
- Phase 2: Cohort and Context Views
- Phase 3: Trust Controls and Preference Persistence

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## Milestone P3: Public Launch

### Milestone Thesis

Launch publicly with reliability and trust controls suitable for broader consumer and knowledge-worker usage.

### Done When

- Reliability and latency SLOs for briefing generation are met.
- Freshness, duplicate suppression, and source quality floor are enforced.
- Notification cadence controls prevent fatigue.
- Product support and incident playbook are active.

### Phase Plan

- Phase 1: Reliability and SLO Enforcement
- Phase 2: Operational Quality Controls
- Phase 3: Launch Readiness and Support Ops

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## Milestone P4: Scale + Revenue Fit

### Milestone Thesis

Scale the product and validate monetization while preserving user trust and briefing quality.

### Done When

- Monetization model validated.
- Revenue and quality metrics monitored together.
- Retention remains stable as volume increases.
- Next segment expansion is backed by product data.

### Phase Plan

- Phase 1: Monetization Experiments
- Phase 2: Quality-Protecting Growth
- Phase 3: Expansion Strategy

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## Milestone PG1: Personalization Core Done (Blocking Gate)

### Milestone Thesis

Before expanding product breadth, prove the personalization loop is technically correct, immediately responsive, and materially useful to users.

### Must Pass (All Required)

- **Hard negatives are exact:** `hide/mute/block` items and creators never leak after write, restart, or replay.
- **Immediate adaptation is real:** `more/less/skip/save` actions change next-refresh ranking within target latency budget.
- **Replay correctness:** user personalization state (seen-state, preference shifts, relationship weights) rebuilds deterministically from checkpoint + WAL replay.
- **Quality uplift vs baseline:** useful-item rate and repeated-unwanted-item rate beat a non-personalized baseline feed.
- **Diversity with personalization:** relevance holds while source/topic domination stays within guardrails.

### Why This Gate Exists

Without this gate, roadmap execution drifts into breadth (more surfaces, more modes) before the core personalization promise is trustworthy.

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## Product Metrics

### Activation

- First briefing completion rate
- Time to first useful item saved
- Feedback action rate in first session

### Retention

- D1/D7/D30 retention
- Sessions per active user per week
- Percentage of users with 4+ briefing days per week

### Quality and Trust

- Useful-item rate per briefing
- Repeated-unwanted-item rate after negative feedback
- Diversity score in top 10 items
- Explanation usefulness rating

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## Dependencies on Engine Track

| Product Capability | Primary Engine Dependencies |
|--------------------|-----------------------------|
| Real-time adaptation from feedback | M1 Signal Engine, M3 Feedback Loop |
| Cohort briefing layer | M3 User model, M6 cohort surface support |
| Search-within-briefing | M5 Hybrid Search |
| Public reliability | M7 Production Hardening |

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## Planning References

- Use case: `docs/personal-briefing-beachhead.md`
- Engine roadmap: `docs/planning/ROADMAP.md`
- Product milestone execution: `docs/planning/milestone-p/`
