Category · The Solution

Recipient Intelligence

Recipient Intelligence is the layer that gives an AI a durable model of the recipient — and adapts every message to them. It's the EQ layer for AI.

Version
1.0
Published
June 19, 2026
Last updated
June 19, 2026

What it is

Recipient Intelligence is a capability layer that sits between an AI agent and the send action. Before a message goes out, it answers three questions the model can't: who is this for, how do they prefer to be communicated with, and what does the relationship need right now. It is the direct answer to Recipient Blindness — the structural gap where a system writes fluently but has no model of the person reading.

"EQ layer" and "emotional intelligence" describe the effect. Recipient Intelligence is the precise name for the mechanism: a model of the recipient, applied to the message.

The same intent, two recipients

Recipient Intelligence isn't tone. It changes structure — order, length, what leads, what's cut. Here's one intent written for two different recipients:

// intent: ask for the Q3 forecast by Friday
Oracle· context first
Hi Maya — as we scope Q3 planning, the forecast is the input the whole model hinges on. Once we have your numbers we can pressure-test the assumptions together. Could you share the Q3 forecast by Friday?
Dragon· ask first
Maya — need the Q3 forecast by Friday to lock the plan. Numbers only is fine; we can talk through the why after.

Same goal, same model, different structure — because the recipient is different. A system with no model of the recipient can't make this choice, so it sends the average to everyone.

How it works

Recipient Intelligence rests on three primitives:

Recipient state
A durable, per-person model — archetype, communication style, and signals — that persists across sessions instead of resetting on every message. This is the memory Recipient Blindness lacks.
Adaptation
Rewriting a draft to the recipient: what leads, what's cut, how long, how direct. Adaptation changes the structure of a message, not just its tone.
Relationship health
Reading the thread over time — stalls, drift, and reconnect opportunities — so the system knows what the relationship needs next, not just what to say once.

Underneath, recipients are mapped to a taxonomy of communication archetypes — Dragon, Oracle, Sphinx, and nine others — each with its own adaptation guidance. The archetype is what makes adaptation repeatable instead of a one-off guess.

How it's measured

A category needs a standard. The Recipient Intelligence Index (RII) scores systems 0–10 across five dimensions — recipient state persistence, adaptation depth, feedback integration, archetype differentiation, and relationship-health tracking — to separate genuine Recipient Intelligence from the appearance of it.

Build with it

Recipient Intelligence is an API call. Profile a recipient, then adapt a draft to them:

# 1 — profile the recipient POST /api/v1/context/person -> { archetype, guidance, confidence } # 2 — adapt the draft to them POST /api/v1/adapt/message -> { adapted_message, reasoning }
Two calls add Recipient Intelligence to any agent. Start in the quickstart, or read /context/person and /adapt/message in the docs.
Keep reading
The problem
Recipient Blindness →
The standard
Recipient Intelligence Index →
Build with the API
Developer Docs →