--- # /blocks/obligations/ - stamped from block-map-canon-v0.5 (entry 3) and the # block-page template. Confidentiality: shape yes, implementation no; moments # are illustrative composites; no client names, thresholds or gated figures. title: 'The obligations block' slug: 'obligations' object: 'Each regulatory and contractual commitment, from the day it lands to the day it is audited.' pain: 'The regulator asked, and it took six weeks and four people to assemble the answer.' description: 'Every regulatory and contractual commitment run as one loop - sensed when the rule lands, evidenced as the work happens, answerable in hours not weeks.' metaTitle: 'The obligations block: evidence as work happens' related: - 'resilience' - 'financial-crime' order: 4 noindex: false # launched 2026-07-24 --- # The obligations block **Every commitment, run as one loop** - sensed when the rule lands, evidenced as the work happens, answerable in hours rather than weeks. --- ## The pain *"The regulator asked, and it took six weeks and four people to assemble the answer."* Compliance is run as archaeology. A rule lands in one inbox, a clause is signed in another, the evidence that a control actually held is scattered across the systems where the work happened - and none of it is assembled until someone asks. So the horizon scan, the attestation, the audit response each become a project: people pulled off the desk to reconstruct, after the fact, what the firm already did. Every obligation is real and owned by someone; the picture of all of them, current and evidenced, is owned by no one. In wealth and insurance this is consumer-duty evidence; in legal, AML and SRA duties; in distribution, product and sanctions obligations. ## What the block is The object is each obligation - one continuous record per commitment, from the day a rule lands or a clause is signed through interpretation, controls, evidence, attestation and audit. Everything the obligation touches feeds that record: the rulebook and its changes, the clauses you have signed, control tests and their results, the evidence as the work produces it, attestations and audit trails. A model reads it permanently. Your compliance, document and matter systems stay exactly where they are - the block reads from them, it does not replace them. ## The loop in action [MOMENT: styled quote panel] A consultation surfaces in the horizon scan. Read against the obligations you already carry, it is not abstract: *"this touches three of your existing duties; here is the impact, and here is the owner for each in the vertical that runs it."* An impact note is drafted and routed before the rule is even in force - the work of interpretation done once, with the trail attached, not repeated in a panic when the deadline arrives. - *the dial: recommend* [MOMENT: styled quote panel] The catch. The audit request arrives, and the evidence pack is already there - gathered by the nervous system as the work happened, not excavated afterwards. But it does not leave the building on its own: the block holds the release until the named owner has signed and the requester's access is confirmed. *"The pack is assembled and ready; it releases on your signature."* The answer that took six weeks takes an afternoon, and the release is still governed. - *the dial: draft, with the governance holding* [MOMENT: styled quote panel] A non-standard clause is signed in a contract. The block reads it, registers the new obligation it creates, and notifies the owner before it is quietly forgotten - the commitment on the record from the day it is made, not discovered at the next audit. - *the dial: recommend* Each output states what it saw, why it matters, what it recommends, and how confident it is - every fact linked back to its source, in an order a compliance officer can read and a regulator can examine. ## You set the dial Every capability has four positions: **observe** - it reads silently and measures its own accuracy; **recommend** - it surfaces the case and a proposed action to a named owner; **draft** - it prepares the action for a human signature; **act** - it executes within agreed bounds and logs everything. Everything starts at observe. Promotion is earned on the measured record and reversed instantly if it doesn't hold. Attestations and anything a regulator sees stay behind a human signature - permanently, if that is your policy. The mechanics are the immune gate described in [our framework](/ai-native-company/). ## How it lands It starts narrow: one rulebook or one obligation class - the duties that cost you the most to evidence - the block at observe against your own past outcomes. Nothing is replaced, nothing is migrated - the first signals flow from the systems you already run. From there it is a bounded engagement - blueprint, build, handover - and your team owns the result outright: the signal map, the judgement rules, the dial settings, the working loop. ## The backtest Take three past information requests: one answered in hours, one that took weeks and four people, and one where the evidence could not be found at all. What did your own record hold, and when could you reach it? That is the first question the diagnostic answers. Take [the ten-minute diagnostic](https://benchmark.somai.studio), or write to [hello@somai.studio](mailto:hello@somai.studio?subject=The%20obligations%20block). --- Runs on [our framework](/ai-native-company/) ยท related reading: [Most AI spend never reaches the P&L](/thinking/most-ai-spend-never-reaches-the-pnl/)