Inspiration
Freelancers, clients, independent service providers, and buyers often begin working together through informal conversations. Important details such as the project scope, deliverables, deadlines, revisions, payment expectations, and acceptance criteria can easily be misunderstood or forgotten.
We were inspired to build TrustBridge AI to address this gap. We wanted to make it easier for people to establish clear expectations before a transaction begins, especially for individuals and small businesses that may not have access to formal contract-management tools.
Our goal is simple: make trust easier to build through clear agreements, shared understanding, and transparent transaction records.
What It Does
TrustBridge AI is an AI-powered agreement and transaction coordination platform.
It helps users:
- Create agreements with AI: Users describe a project or transaction, and Google's Gemini AI helps generate a structured agreement draft. It can also ask clarification questions when important details are missing.
- Review and edit terms: Users can edit the agreement's scope, deliverables, deadlines, payment amount, revisions, and acceptance criteria before saving it.
- Share agreements: Users can share a review link with the other party, allowing them to review the proposed terms and accept or reject them.
- Maintain transaction records: Agreements and relevant activity are organized in a workspace to make the process easier to follow.
- Make payments with PayPal: The platform integrates PayPal checkout, allowing users to test payment flows through the PayPal Sandbox environment.
TrustBridge AI does not replace legal advice or act as an escrow service. It helps participants establish and review clearer expectations around their transactions.
How We Built It
We built TrustBridge AI as a web application using Next.js and TypeScript.
The frontend provides the agreement workspace, drafting experience, and transaction interface. The backend uses API routes to manage agreement creation, review workflows, and payment operations.
We integrated Google Gemini through the Google GenAI SDK to generate structured agreement drafts and clarification questions from user-provided information. AI-generated content remains editable so users can review and correct the terms before saving.
For payments, we integrated the PayPal Orders API and PayPal Checkout, using the Sandbox environment to develop and test the payment flow without processing real-money transactions.
We also implemented authentication, agreement storage, shareable review links, and transaction activity records to connect the different parts of the experience.
Challenges We Faced
One of our biggest challenges was making AI-generated agreements reliable and useful. Initial testing exposed API authentication problems and temporary model availability errors. We improved the integration by introducing retry handling, a configurable fallback model, request timeouts, and automated tests.
Another challenge was integrating PayPal's order creation and payment capture flow. We had to investigate API responses, distinguish between order identifiers and transaction identifiers, and verify the payment status rather than assuming that a checkout attempt meant a successful payment.
We also worked to make the agreement workflow understandable: users should be able to review and edit AI-generated terms, share them with another party, and keep a record of the process.
What We Learned
Building TrustBridge AI taught us that integrating AI into a real product requires more than generating text. The output must be structured, validated, editable, and useful within an actual workflow.
We gained practical experience with the Gemini API, Next.js, TypeScript, API integration, authentication, database-backed workflows, PayPal Sandbox payments, automated testing, and debugging third-party services.
Most importantly, we learned that trust in digital transactions starts with clear communication. Technology can help people work together more confidently when expectations are visible and understood by everyone involved.
What's Next
We envision expanding TrustBridge AI with more flexible agreement templates, improved transaction tracking, additional payment options, stronger
