Wevolv
Crafting the future of contract negotiations for athletes with AI. By refining and expanding AI capabilities, Wevolv is shaping a new era of athlete empowerment — where technology provides clarity, trust, and strategic insights for athletes navigating complex career decisions.
The Origin
Wevolv was born from lived experience. Founders Jori Davis and Julie Wojta — both former professional basketball players — spent years navigating the murky world of international athlete contracts. They saw firsthand how opaque the process was: complex legal language, limited access to trusted advisors, and agents whose incentives didn’t always align with the athlete’s best interest.
They built a mobile app to start solving the problem — a digital community where athletes could connect, share information, and navigate their professional journeys with better support. But they knew the product needed to go further. They needed a partner who could assess what they’d built, identify where AI could transform the experience, and ship it fast.
The Challenge
Athletes face a set of problems that traditional tools don’t solve:
- Lack of transparency in contracts — legal language designed for lawyers, not the people whose careers depend on understanding it
- Limited access to legal support — especially for athletes early in their careers or playing internationally
- Trust issues with agents — misaligned incentives and little visibility into what’s standard
- Time-consuming manual analysis — athletes spend hours trying to parse documents they weren’t trained to read
- Diverse concerns beyond contract terms — salary, termination clauses, exclusivity, agent fees — each requiring specialized knowledge
Wevolv’s existing app addressed community and connection. The next step was building an AI-powered tool that could analyze contracts in real time, surface risks, and give athletes the clarity they needed to negotiate from a position of strength.
The Thinking
We started with a month-long strategy phase — not to build decks, but to do the consultative work that shapes what gets built and why.
Research (Weeks 1–2): We documented the existing architecture, ran strategy workshops with the founding team, conducted market and competitive research, and assessed both the mobile app and landing page. We needed to understand what was working, what wasn’t, and where AI integration would create the most value.
Define (Weeks 3–4): From research, we built out brand guidelines, a refined customer profile, technical architecture, design direction, the AI implementation structure, and a phased product release strategy. Every decision was grounded in what we learned about athletes’ real needs — not assumptions about what a sports tech product should look like.
The Design
We established five design pillars: Clarity, Trust, Precision, Empowerment, and Innovation.
The team analyzed the existing app’s UX and UI, gathered user feedback, and researched competitor designs across sports tech and contract management. This informed a visual strategy that balanced familiarity with distinction — bold color palettes and clear visual hierarchies that guide athletes through critical decisions without overwhelming them.
The Solutions
For every pain point, we designed a specific response:
- User-Friendly Report Summaries — contract analysis translated into plain language athletes can act on
- Personalized Risk Alerts — flagging clauses that deviate from market norms or carry hidden risk
- Direct Access to Legal Support — connecting athletes with qualified professionals when AI analysis surfaces complex issues
- AI-Powered Contract Analysis — real-time insights on salary clauses, agent agreements, termination terms, and negotiation strategies
- Comprehensive Issue-Tracking — a structured view of every concern across every contract
- Athlete-Centric Design — every screen built for the people using it, not the people building it
The AI Architecture
The AI-powered contract tool was built on Large Language Models with a deliberate, layered approach:
Prompt Engineering — domain-specific refinement developed in collaboration with Wevolv’s legal team, ensuring the AI understood the nuances of athlete contracts, not just generic legal language.
RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) — using OpenAI Assistants with a vector store to ground responses in real regulatory frameworks. FIBA regulations, standard contract templates, and legal precedents were all indexed and retrievable.
Function Calling — precise output formatting so contract analysis results are structured, consistent, and actionable rather than free-form text.
Iterative Testing — validation across multiple contract types and sports to ensure accuracy before launch. The system focused initially on Athlete × Agent contracts in basketball, with manual review pathways for other sports and contract types.
The Build
With strategy and architecture locked, we built and shipped in seven weeks.
Personalized Onboarding — athletes provide their name, sport, and background details for a customized experience from the first interaction.
Sport & Contract Type Selection — athletes specify their sport and contract type. Basketball contracts receive AI-powered analysis; other sports are routed through manual expert review.
Share Your Concerns — before analysis begins, athletes select specific focus areas — salary, termination clauses, agent fees — enabling the AI to deliver targeted, relevant insights.
Salary Coalition — an anonymous database where athletes contribute salary data, promoting transparency and helping peers understand market trends across leagues and regions.
AI-Powered Contract Analysis — the core feature. Real-time insights highlighting salary clauses, agent agreements, potential risks, and negotiation strategies. Athletes see exactly what matters in their contract and why.
Legal Support Access — when the AI identifies complex or high-stakes issues, athletes connect directly with legal professionals for personalized guidance.
Communication System — athletes interact seamlessly with legal professionals and the internal Wevolv team within the platform, keeping every conversation in context.
Swift Mobile Integration — the web-based contract tool was integrated into the existing iOS Swift codebase, delivering a native experience without rebuilding the entire app.
The Vision
The initial AI launch validates the potential for broader expansion — more sports, more contract types, more athlete scenarios. By combining Wevolv’s athlete-focused vision with deep product and AI expertise, the platform is positioned to set a new standard in how athletes interact with complex contracts.
Wevolv can shape a new era of athlete empowerment — where AI technology provides clarity, trust, and strategic insights for athletes navigating complex career decisions.
