Direqt
Direqt is a chatbot and AI search platform built for digital publishers. It trains a custom assistant on your own archive, embeds it across your site, and turns reader conversations into engagement, in-chat advertising and subscriptions.
What is Direqt?
Direqt is a chatbot and search platform built for one audience: the people who publish content for a living. Rather than bolting a general-purpose assistant onto a website, it trains a chatbot exclusively on a publisher's own archive, then lets that bot be embedded wherever readers already are — the home page, a dedicated page, or inside individual articles.
The platform has two halves. AI Chat is the conversational product: you upload an RSS feed of everything you have published, the bot inherits that catalogue, and a self-service console lets you shape its persona, topics, tone and appearance. Individual pieces can be excluded if you want the bot working from a narrower selection. AI Search is the retrieval product: Direqt crawls and indexes every page on the site, then serves a hybrid of keyword and semantic search with generated AI Answers sitting in the results.
The commercial argument is engagement that pays for itself. Direqt claims chat users deliver 67% longer sessions and 35% more repeat visits, says more than 100 publishers work with it, and reports that publishers running AI Answers see over 200% more time on site, pageviews per visit and repeat visits. Those conversations are then monetised directly, through in-chat advertising or by steering readers toward paid subscriptions, with revenue sharing open to accounts that qualify.
Reach extends past the publisher's own domain. Bots can be surfaced through existing social channels and messaging apps, an Instagram integration is documented, and Direqt runs a discovery network living inside chat apps. Developers get a documented messaging API plus guides covering webchat, search overlays, results pages, UI components, styling and analytics events.
The company behind it is Direqt, Inc., based in Seattle and founded in 2017. Its published sub-processor list names Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, the last supplying the underlying generative capability. Reference customers named on the site include Wired, Vogue, GQ, ESPN, Cosmopolitan and The Sun.
What it does
- Train a custom AI chatbot on a publisher's entire back catalogue
- Embed that chatbot anywhere on a website or in an app
- Index every page of a site and serve hybrid AI search with generated answers
- Monetise conversations through in-chat advertising
- Convert readers to paid subscriptions inside the conversation
- Extend reach through social channels, messaging apps and a chat discovery network
- Drive the whole experience programmatically through a messaging API
When to use Direqt / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Direqt is the right fit.
When to use Direqt
- Digital publishers and media brands sitting on a deep archive they want readers to actually explore
- Audience and growth teams measured on session length, pageviews and repeat visits
- Monetisation leads looking to add in-chat advertising or steer readers toward paid subscriptions
- Product managers and front-end engineers able to embed a widget and consume a messaging API
- News, magazine and entertainment sites whose readers arrive for one article and leave immediately
When not to use Direqt
- Sites without a substantial content archive, since the assistant is trained on what you have already published
- Buyers who need public pricing or self-serve signup, as every route to the product runs through a booked demo
- Teams operating outside the United States and the United Kingdom, the territory the Chat Terms set for the service
- Organisations that require published security certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 before signing
- Anyone wanting to trial the product unaided, as neither a free trial nor a free plan is advertised
How to use Direqt
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Book a 1:1 demo through the Request a Demo form, which is the only way into the product
- Work with the Direqt team to set the account up after that call
- Upload an RSS feed of your published content so the bot inherits your full catalogue
- Exclude any pieces you do not want in the corpus if you need a narrower selection
- Open the self-service console and shape the bot's persona, topics and tone of voice
- Adjust the look and feel so the experience matches your brand
- Decide where the bot will earn its place — home page, dedicated page or inside articles
- Embed it on the site, a step Direqt describes as straightforward rather than a months-long project
- For AI Search, let Direqt crawl and index the site, then place the overlay or results page
- Optionally extend to social channels and messaging apps, or drive it through the v3 messaging API
Pros & Cons
Pros
- The bot is trained only on your own content, so answers stay inside your editorial universe
- Data ownership is contractually granted to the client, with Direqt's licence limited to running the service
- Sub-processors are named openly — Google, Microsoft and OpenAI — with role and location for each
- A full Data Processing Addendum is published on the site, not merely offered on request
- An Article 27 EU representative is formally designated, which many US vendors of this size skip
- Public developer documentation covers the messaging API, integrations, UI components and analytics
- The product is genuinely specialised for publishers rather than a generic chatbot repositioned
Cons
- No pricing is published anywhere: there is no pricing page and no amount on the entire site
- No free trial and no free plan are advertised, so the product cannot be evaluated unaided
- The only entry point is a booked demo; no self-serve signup is visible
- The page linked as Terms of Use is a document written for Search.com, not for Direqt
- No security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 is published
- The Chat Terms restrict the service to users located in the United States and the United Kingdom
- The privacy policy and GDPR addendum date from February 2023 and have not been revised since
Pricing & Plans
Direqt publishes no pricing. There is no pricing page, no advertised free plan and no free trial, and no amount appears anywhere on the site; every route to a quote runs through a booked demo. The Chat Terms do describe the structure: a monthly subscription fee set individually on the customer's payment form and calculated from the number of URLs, domains and monthly search queries, with a documented base allowance of 1,000 indexed URLs and 1,000 monthly search queries. Accounts may additionally become eligible for a share of in-chat advertising revenue, payable within sixty days of the advertiser settling, but no percentage is published. No lowest price point can therefore be stated in any currency.
- Base Plan — 1
- 000 indexed URLs and 1
- 000 monthly search queries per the Chat Terms
- the fee itself is set individually on the customer's payment form and is not published
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Direqt handles your data.
GDPR overview
Direqt publishes a dedicated GDPR Privacy Addendum, last revised 28 February 2023, covering residents of the EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Transfers outside those territories rely on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK ICO clauses. A representative under Article 27 is designated by name — DataRep, 12 Northbrook Road, Dublin, Ireland — and a Data Protection Officer is reachable at dpo@direqt.ai. A full Data Processing Addendum is published openly, defining obligations under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA, the CPRA and the VCDPA, and listing current sub-processors. The machinery is therefore concrete and unusually complete for a company of this size. One nuance matters: nowhere in the body of any page does Direqt actually claim to be GDPR compliant. It describes rights and obligations rather than asserting conformity.
Who owns the data?
The Publisher Platform Terms are explicit: as between the two parties, the client owns all right, title and interest in the data it loads into the platform. Direqt receives only a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use that data in order to perform the agreement, and that licence is expressly made subject to the Data Processing Addendum. Ownership therefore stays with the publisher, and Direqt's rights are bounded by the purpose of delivering the service. The company markets this arrangement directly, quoting a customer who chose it in order to retain ownership and control over their data and content.
Reuse rights
Direqt acts as processor on client data and may use it to run the service, relying on three disclosed sub-processors: Google for cloud hosting, Microsoft as advertising provider, and OpenAI for AI-powered features, the last two receiving the content of user chats. Personal data is processed and stored in the United States. The privacy policy is candid that users generally cannot opt out of processing necessary to provide the platform, though it points to the NAI and DAA mechanisms for interest-based advertising. For publishers, reuse of their own content is unrestricted since they never give up ownership. What the site does not settle is whether that material may serve to train models: the only no-training clause published is written in the name of Search.com, not Direqt.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Direqt hosts and processes personal data in the United States. Both the privacy policy and the GDPR Privacy Addendum state that information may be processed and stored there, and both warn plainly that United States federal, state and local authorities, courts and law enforcement may be able to obtain disclosure under local law. The three sub-processors disclosed in the Data Processing Addendum all process in the USA: Google LLC for cloud hosting, Microsoft, Inc as advertising provider, and OpenAI, LLC for AI-powered features. No alternative hosting region — European, British or otherwise — is offered anywhere on the site. For customers or readers in the EEA, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, transfers out of those territories are covered by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK ICO clauses, and an Article 27 representative is designated in Dublin. The jurisdiction question is therefore settled and disclosed rather than left vague, but there is only one answer available.
Where Direqt works
Country-level availability.
Available in
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Direqt.
- The page linked as Terms of Use is written for Search.com throughout and never names Direqt, so the contract a publisher thinks it is reading may not be the one that applies
- No price is published at any point, which makes budgeting impossible before entering a sales conversation
- The Chat Terms limit the service to users aged 18 or over located in the United States, its territories and the United Kingdom
- A bot trained only on your own archive will answer confidently within it and can mislead readers when a question falls outside that corpus
- Chat content is passed to Microsoft as advertising provider and to OpenAI for AI features, which readers conversing on an editorial site may not expect
- Whether publisher content can be used to train models is left unresolved, since the only no-training clause on the site belongs to another brand
- Headline gains of 67%, 35% and over 200% are vendor claims with no published methodology behind them
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Moderate, and front-loaded onto a developer. The conceptual work is light: upload an RSS feed, then shape persona, topics, tone and appearance in a self-service console that needs no technical skill. Placing the experience on the site does require someone comfortable with front-end code, and Direqt publishes guides for webchat, search overlays, results pages, UI components, styling and analytics events for exactly that. The company describes embedding as a straightforward process rather than a months-long project, and because every account starts with a 1:1 demo, the team is involved in the initial setup.
Deployment
Integrations
Behind Direqt
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Where can readers find the chatbot?
How is the chatbot trained on my content?
How does the chatbot generate revenue?
Is there an API?
How much does Direqt cost?
Is there a minimum age to use the service?
Where is the data hosted?
Which third parties process the data?
Who owns the content and data loaded into the platform?
Is Direqt available worldwide?
Should you pick Direqt?
Direqt is one of the more coherent products in its category, largely because it refuses to be general. Everything about it — training on an RSS feed of your own archive, embedding inside articles, monetising the conversation with in-chat advertising, a discovery network living in chat apps — is shaped around the economics of digital publishing rather than adapted to them after the fact. The reference customers are real names, and the developer documentation is public and specific enough to judge the integration work before committing.
Its governance is also better than the norm at this size. The Publisher Platform Terms hand data ownership to the client outright, the sub-processor list is published with roles and locations rather than hidden behind a request form, a full DPA sits openly on the site, and an Article 27 EU representative is named. That is a serious posture.
The reservations are commercial and documentary rather than technical. Nothing about price is public — no page, no figure, no trial, no free tier — so the only way to learn what it costs is to book a demo, which rules the product out for anyone who needs to budget first. The Chat Terms confine the service to the United States and the United Kingdom. No security certification is published. And the page the footer labels Terms of Use is in fact a document written throughout for Search.com, a sibling brand that also appears in the AI Search logo; it never names Direqt, which leaves the site's most basic contractual page pointing somewhere unexpected.
For an established publisher with a deep archive and a willingness to go through a sales conversation, Direqt is worth the call. For anyone else, the opacity will decide it.
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