The Next Evolution of Your AI Coach

April 14, 2026 - Daniel O'Dowd

Hugh, VirtualSpeech’s state-of-the-art AI Coach, has quickly become a core part of the learning experience for VirtualSpeech users across the world.

After every single roleplay, learners can speak to Hugh and receive personalized feedback on their performance in one-to-one coaching sessions, where back-and-forth conversation with the coach allows you to dig deeper into your skills.

Now, the next evolution of VirtualSpeech AI Coaching is here.

From April 14, learners can join Hugh for bespoke, one-to-one coaching sessions built from the ground up to improve key aspects of your soft skills. This means AI Coaching is now available before your roleplays, to help you prepare in more detail than ever before.

These coaching sessions are built by our experienced in-house learning team, and designed to help you develop specific aspects of your soft skills.

In these conversations with your AI Coach, you’ll work through practical advice and learn the theory behind the soft skill you’re developing. These back-and-forth discussions allow you to dive deep and ensure you fully understand the skill before you put it into action.

Afterwards, you’ll receive a roundup of your discussion with Hugh, highlighting the critical outcomes and key takeaways from the coaching session. You can then take these outcomes and apply them in your practice sessions in VirtualSpeech, and receive further feedback from Hugh – or if you’re feeling confident, go straight into your real-world scenario.

We’re launching with 4 bespoke scenarios, with more regularly being added.

Understanding Your Audience

Before you deliver any sort of message, it’s essential to understanding your audience. Without this understanding, your message won’t resonate – yet this crucial step in speech planning is often overlooked.

With your AI Coach Hugh’s help, you’ll ensure it’s not missed in your speech.

In this coaching session, you’ll:

Clarify who your audience is and what brings them to your talk.
Explore your audience’s needs, motivations, and mindset to gain deeper insight into what truly matters to them.
Identify key factors that influence your audience’s interests and engagement.
Generate an audience-focused plan to guide the design of your talk.

Once the session ends, you’ll receive a detailed breakdown of everything you discussed with your coach – a personalized document that will form the basis of your speech planning.

Then, with your insights in mind, why not dive into another session with Hugh and start planning your speech’s contents?

Planning a Speech

Delivering a successful speech involves several key ingredients – but how you use those ingredients depends on your unique style and goals. In this session, your AI Coach, Hugh, will guide you through each element of your speech, helping you plan an engaging audience experience and ensure your message resonates

During these coaching sessions, you’ll:

Define clear objectives for your talk, focusing on what’s in it for your audience.
Develop an engaging hook to capture your audience’s attention from the very start.
Establish and communicate your credibility on the topic.
Organize and structure your main content for maximum impact.
Design a memorable closing that leaves a lasting impression.
Refine both your speech structure and content for clarity and effectiveness.

Once the session ends, the learning doesn’t stop. You’ll receive a detailed breakdown of everything you discussed with your coach – a personalised document to help you create an engaging, credible and varied speech.

Then, with your planned speech ready, you can jump into a VirtualSpeech roleplay session and practice delivering it to a realistic audience.

Reframing Confrontational Language

Soft skills are all about how you interact with the people around you, and the way you phrase your message can have a major impact on how it is received.

If your language sounds blaming, judgmental, dismissive, or overly blunt, it can make people feel criticized and less open to the conversation.

This session with AI Coach Hugh is designed to help you notice and shift language patterns that create friction, making your communication more constructive and solution-focused.

*AI Coach Hugh provides advice tailored to your specific situation.*

During this coaching session, you’ll work through three examples of confrontational language with Hugh and:

Identify what makes the wording confrontational.
Practice rephrasing it using calmer, more cooperative language.
Develop your ability to spot—and replace—unhelpful patterns with constructive, respectful alternatives.
Strengthen your skills in raising concerns and delivering feedback in a way that keeps conversations open and collaborative.

Once the session ends, you’ll receive a personalized summary capturing your insights and new language habits – a handy reference to help you apply more constructive communication in real-life situations.

If you want to practice further, you can take part in a free-flowing conversation with a VirtualSpeech avatar and get even more feedback on how you did.

Leading Through Change

Change management is a critical leadership skill, and leading change successfully is not just about what is changing, but how you guide people through it.

When change is unclear or poorly communicated, it can create confusion, resistance, and a loss of trust. In this session, your AI Coach, Hugh, will help you work through a real change initiative, clarify the message, anticipate likely concerns, and shape a practical plan for communicating the change clearly and confidently.

During the coaching session, you’ll:

Clarify the change initiative and the problem it is trying to solve.
Explore who will be impacted, how they may be affected, and what concerns or resistance may arise.
Identify the biggest risks, objections, or sensitive areas to prepare for.
Shape a clear approach for communicating the change in a way that builds trust and supports buy-in.
Define practical next steps so you feel more prepared to move the change forward.

Once the session ends, you’ll receive a detailed breakdown of everything discussed – a personalized document to help you communicate the change clearly, prepare for likely resistance, and move forward with a practical plan.

Then, practice communicating the change with a presentation roleplay, or deliver an announcement in front of a realistic audience to help you develop confidence in your ability to communicate change.