Certification practice lab for coach-training schools - Trainees get the reps. Mentors stay in charge.

No. They are rehearsal, not client coaching, and the build says so to trainees. Schools use them to give trainees more practice and faster feedback on their competencies, and a mentor signs it off before it counts on the record. ICF counts a coaching hour as a live session with a client who hired the coach, and EMCC Global counts client contact hours. An AI client is neither, so the lab logs every session as practice.

Sources: ICF: What are the ICF experience requirements?; EMCC Global: EMCC Individual Accreditation (EIA)

Scores and written feedback land in a mentor queue first. A mentor approves, edits or rejects them before they go on the trainee’s record, and the queue is part of the Friday view. The lab never stands in for mentor coaching itself. ICF asks for 10 hours of mentor coaching over three months for the ACC, with a real mentor coach.

Sources: ICF: Become an Associate Certified Coach (ACC)

Yes. That is the Certification Practice Lab. Trainees coach an AI practice client, get first-pass feedback on your competencies and a readiness score per competency, and mentors approve it in a review queue. The cohort dashboard and certification-readiness report show who is close to ready, and a human signs off every certification. It can grow to include an hours tracker, an admissions assistant and an alumni portal under your school’s name.

An AI client that trainees can coach any time, by voice or text, between classes. It plays a client from a profile your faculty writes, and it acts like real clients do: vague goals, asking for advice, changing topic. After each session the trainee gets feedback on your competencies, a mentor approves it, and the session is logged as practice. It adds reps. It does not replace real clients, triads or mentor coaching.

Yes. We build the feedback from your marking guide, whichever framework it follows. If you teach to the ICF Core Competencies or EMCC Global's competence framework, your guide already maps to them. We don't claim the lab is approved by ICF or EMCC, and its scores are feedback for your mentors, not an official assessment.

Yes. Trainees enter their real sessions, and the tracker shows client hours, mentor coaching hours and competency sign-offs against the targets you set, such as the 100 hours with at least eight clients and 75 paid hours that ICF asks for at ACC level. Practice sessions sit in their own column and never add to client hours. Exports take one click, so nobody sends screenshots. ICF asks coaches to get client consent before they log a client’s name, so the tracker asks for it too.

Sources: ICF: What are the ICF experience requirements?

Both. Coaching is spoken, so voice is the default for practice sessions, with a standard AI voice. Text is there for quick drills. The AI always says it is an AI practice client, and we don't copy anyone's voice.

They are good tools. Ovida gives feedback on recorded coaching sessions against ICF or EMCC competencies, has AI practice partners, and says its contracts start under $10,000 a year. Yoodli does AI role-play, with custom role-plays on its Business plan. Both run on their own platforms. A build runs on your own marking guide, with your mentor queue and hours tracker, under your school’s name, in accounts you own, with no fee per trainee. If a tool fits you better, we say so on the call.

Sources: Ovida: for coaching schools and mentor coaches; Ovida pricing; Yoodli pricing

Only if the trainee agrees on screen first, and only the mentors you assign can see them. Trainees never see each other’s sessions. Data stays in accounts in your name, and we use AI provider APIs that don’t train on your data by default.

A first version takes about two weeks, and most builds are live in four to six weeks. After a free call and a free audit, you get one fixed quote in writing, paid 40% to start, 30% at the approved first version and 30% at launch. Hosting and AI accounts are in your name, so the running cost is the provider’s bill, which grows with use, not headcount. Optional monthly support (Care & Grow) is never required. From you we need your competency model, your marking guide, a few sessions your mentors have already marked, and two 60-minute sessions.