Paystack, one of Africa’s leading payments technology companies, has announced the launch of a new Dashboard rebuilt from the ground up for the first time in 10 years.
The redesigned product introduces an AI-native Command Centre that allows businesses to ask questions in plain language and receive answers grounded in their own Paystack data.
The launch marks a major evolution in how businesses interact with Paystack. For nearly a decade, the Paystack Dashboard has been the core surface for monitoring transactions, managing settlements, reviewing disputes, and running day-to-day payment operations for thousands of merchants.
As Paystack expanded its products and workflows, the Dashboard grew more powerful, but more complex. Built on Pax, Paystack’s internal design system, the redesigned Dashboard includes:
- An AI-native Command Centre, embedded directly into the Dashboard — no separate chatbot or assistant, that allows businesses to ask questions in plain language and receive answers grounded in their own Paystack data, as text, tables, or charts. The system combines GPT models, structured data retrieval, and visualisation tools to deliver responses in the most relevant format.
- A simpler product architecture, with navigation reorganised into two core sections: Payments and Products, making it easier for merchants to find what they need and scale as Paystack’s offerings grow.
- Full mobile parity, making every screen, feature, and action available on mobile as well as desktop. It also offers a dark mode feature.
- Stronger analytics and clearer navigation built into the foundation of the product
“Businesses don’t come to their dashboard because they want to click through pages. They come because they have questions,” said Dara Assim-Ita, Senior Product Designer at Paystack, who led the rebuild. ” Over the last decade, we have seen firsthand how much time merchants lose navigating tools that were built to display data rather than deliver answers. With this rebuild, we have changed that. Merchants can now simply ask ‘What happened with this transaction?’ or ‘Why is revenue down this week?’ and get a direct answer. The goal is to make the Dashboard feel less like a static reporting tool and more like an intelligent command centre – one that helps merchants understand what’s happening, find what they need faster, and make better decisions.”
To support the experience, Paystack built a new service called Project Canvas API, which handles conversations, connects to model providers, and interfaces with existing Paystack systems. As the Dashboard handles sensitive financial data, the system was built to ensure responses are grounded in real merchant data and screened against safety and compliance requirements before being returned. The company also worked closely with its Data Protection and Privacy team, completed a Data Protection Impact Assessment, and ran extensive adversarial testing ahead of launch.
Dara Assim-Ita added:
“We are at a point where artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming integral to how businesses operate, and Paystack is committed to being on that curve for our merchants. The most powerful application of AI disappears into the work people are already trying to do, and that was the design principle behind this.”
The product direction was shaped by merchant research, including tree testing and direct feedback on how businesses expect to find information.
