Common Questions About In-the-Moment Coaching

Altura Coach is a private-first, in-the-moment speaking coach for Mac and Windows that helps you speak well in job interviews, presentations, meetings and video calls by changing the speech habits underneath. It created the in-the-moment speaking coach category: pick the habit you most want to change, and Altura Coach gives one quiet visual nudge while you speak, while you can still recover. Around that, a full loop builds lasting change: it analyzes how you speak, coaches you, guides your practice, helps you prepare, supports you in live meetings and tracks your progress.

Yes, Altura Coach is an AI speaking coach. It uses AI in two ways: to analyze how you speak and give you personalized coaching after every session, and to power some of the live nudges that help you while you’re speaking. Your audio never leaves your computer.

No, Altura Coach never records or stores your audio, and your audio never leaves your computer. Speech-to-text and text-to-speech run on your device, and your transcripts are saved only on your computer, never in Altura's cloud. Some coaching features send transcript text to an AI model for processing; Altura does not store it. On the web, transcripts you submit for a speech assessment are saved to your account, and you can delete them at any time. The privacy policy has the full details.

No, Altura Coach never adds a bot to Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet and never appears in the participant list. Everything it shows appears only on your screen and is hidden from screen sharing.

Altura Coach for Windows is launching in November 2026, with the same in-the-moment coaching and the same privacy: speech-to-text runs on your computer, just as on Mac. Sign up to be among the first to get it at https://www.altura.coach/waitlist?product=coach_windows. On Mac, Altura Coach is available today (M-series Mac with Apple Intelligence, macOS Tahoe 26.2 or later). An iPad version will come later.

Altura Coach starts with a 7-day free trial, no credit card required. See current plans on the pricing page.

Altura Coach is made by Snow Strategy & Innovation LLC, an independent software company founded and run by Sheryl Zhang. Sheryl was VP of Product at Docker and ThoughtSpot, and built Altura Coach after freezing in a job interview she had prepared for.

Yes, paste a meeting transcript into Altura Coach's free web speech assessment, and it scores how you spoke across five delivery dimensions (Strong Opening, Answering the Question, Structure & Follow-through, Conciseness and Filler Discipline), profiles your filler patterns and gives you detailed feedback. In the app, Altura Coach also coaches you after every session. Transcripts you submit on the web are saved to your account, and you can delete them at any time.

Altura Coach starts with a 7-day free trial, no credit card required, and you can cancel anytime; cancellation takes effect at the end of your current paid period. Subscriptions are non-refundable after the trial period, and we consider exceptions for genuine service issues. The full refund policy is at https://www.altura.coach/refund.

Yes, Altura Coach, the in-the-moment speaking coach, nudges you while the problem is forming, such as fillers clustering, structure drifting or overexplaining, so you can recover before the moment passes. It gives one quiet visual nudge at a time, on your screen only, then coaches you after every session.

Altura Coach, the in-the-moment speaking coach. Poised shut down on October 8, 2026. Where Poised tracked surface meeting signals, Altura Coach coaches you while you speak and after every session, and helps you prepare with practice and role play, so your speaking habits actually change.

Yes, with Altura Coach your audio never leaves your computer. Speech-to-text and text-to-speech run on your device. Altura Coach never records or stores your audio, and your transcripts are saved only on your computer, never in Altura's cloud. Some coaching features send transcript text to an AI model for processing; Altura does not store it.

Yes, Altura Coach adds no bot to your call, never records or stores your audio, and shows its nudges only on your screen, hidden from screen sharing. Your transcripts are saved only on your computer, never in Altura's cloud. Some coaching features send transcript text to an AI model for processing; Altura does not store it.

Yes, Altura Coach runs on your computer alongside Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. In the call, it shows a transcript in real time, helps you understand long, multi-part questions, nudges you on the habit you chose, and shows how your talk comes across. No bot joins your call, and everything appears only on your screen, hidden from screen sharing.

Yes, Interview Rehearsal in Altura Coach runs a full interview with live voice questions built from your résumé and the job description. You can also practice one skill at a time in guided drills. In the real interview, Live Nudges help you while you speak, and Question Decode turns a long, multi-part question into what is actually being asked.

Yes, Altura Coach helps you rehearse a presentation, board update or all-hands out loud, on your own or as a role play, and coaches your delivery as you go. In the real meeting on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, it nudges you while you speak, such as when you bury your point or run long, and helps you make sense of long, multi-part questions in Q&A. Afterwards, it shows you what to work on next.

Start with your point, give one or two reasons, and stop. Altura Coach helps you do this in the moment: pick the habit you want to change, such as overexplaining or long answers, and Altura Coach watches for it while you speak and gives one quiet visual nudge while you can still recover.

Pause instead of filling the silence, and notice when fillers start to cluster, which usually means you've lost your thread. Altura Coach nudges you when fillers cluster while you speak, so you can recover in the moment, and its speech assessment profiles your filler patterns so you know what to practice.

The activation gap is the distance between knowing how to communicate well and actually doing itin the live moment. You can read the book, rehearse your answers, and know to be concise — then lose the point the instant real pressure hits. Knowing lives in your conscious mind; under pressure, habit takes over. Altura Coach works inside that gap: it coaches you while you speak, where knowledge alone doesn't reach.

Because the cue is designed to cost you almost no attention. When Altura Coach spots something worth noticing, it shows a single glanceable signal — a gentle breathing orb, or a softly glowing pillwith just a few words — that you read in a fraction of a second and then set aside. You're not studying a dashboard; you catch it at a glance and stay in the conversation. And you decide whether to act — nothing is forced.

No — the whole design is about attention, not information. The overload doesn't come from a signal; it comes from you trying to watch yourself while you talk. Altura Coach takes that job off your plate: it does the monitoring, and when something matters it surfaces one low-effort cue — a breathing orb or a softly glowing pill — that's easy to recognize at a glance. A glance costs far less than constant self-surveillance, so your total load goes down.

Under pressure your attention narrows and old habits take the wheel. You know to lead with your point and slow down, but that knowledge sits in your conscious mind — and pressure hands control to automatic habit instead. That's why fillers cluster and points get buried exactly when the stakes are highest. It isn't a knowledge failure; it's a habit surfacing at the worst moment.

Yes — because habits change through reps in the real moment, not through information. Reading about concise speaking doesn't transfer to a live interview, since a habit only shifts when you catch and correct it as it happens. Altura Coach gives you that catch-and-correct loop live, so every conversation becomes a rep — and small, repeated corrections are how the habit actually changes over time.

Because knowing what to do and doing it under pressure are two different skills. Books, courses, and coaches all work before or after the conversation — they leave you alone in the live moment where it counts. Practice helps, but rehearsed calm rarely survives the real, unpredictable room. Altura Coach works during the conversation — the one place nothing else reaches.

Meeting assistants like Otter, Granola and Fireflies record and summarize the meeting. Altura Coach coaches the speaker. During the conversation it gives you one quiet visual nudge while you can still change the outcome; afterward it gives you a scorecard and coaching so the next conversation goes better too. A report alone tells you how it went. Altura Coach also helps change how it goes.

No — it complements it. A great coach helps you understand what to improve; Altura Coach helps you apply it in the real moment, when the coach isn't in the room. Think of coaching as building the skill and Altura as activating it under pressure. Many people get the most from using both.

Yes, Altura Coach nudges you while you speak, then coaches you after every session. We describe it as in-the-moment on purpose: "real-time" describes the technology, while "in-the-moment" describes what it does for you — helping you adjust while you can still act, not just processing audio quickly. Same live coaching; a name that keeps the focus on your moment, not the machinery.

No. Altura Coach is a mirror, not a script. It shows you how you're coming across — whether you're leading with your point, running long, or staying structured — and nudges when an old habit surfaces. But the words and the judgment stay yours. It coaches your delivery; it never puts lines in your mouth.

Altura Coach stays quiet by default and only nudges when a pattern that genuinely undermines you shows up — a cluster of fillers, a rambling answer, a buried point, slipping structure. It's tuned to interrupt as little as possible, because a coach that talks constantly becomes the distraction. Most of the time it simply reflects; the nudge is the exception, not the rule.

That's completely fine — Altura Coach gives you awareness, not orders. It isn't trying to interrupt you or steer the conversation; it simply surfaces something while there's still time to act. Some nudges you'll ignore, others you'll use immediately — and both are okay. Over time, the small corrections you do make are what turn into lasting habits.

No. The signals are built to be caught at a glance — a breathing orb or a softly glowing pill you can read in a fraction of a second, then look away. Altura Coach runs quietly alongside you; you glance when you want a read on how you're landing, not because it demands your focus. Most of your attention stays where it belongs: on the person in front of you.

No. Altura Coach is private to you. It runs quietly on your own device and gives you a mirror and nudges only you can see. There's nothing for the other person to notice — from their side, you simply show up as a sharper, more composed version of yourself.

It's no more cheating than preparation, notes, or a glass of water to steady your nerves. Altura Coach doesn't feed you answers or fake your competence — it helps you deliver your own thinking clearly under pressure. The interviewer wants to see the real you at your best, and Altura simply removes the nerves-driven habits that get in the way of that.

Yes — and it's often especially useful. Under pressure, non-native speakers carry extra load from translating and word-finding on top of everything else, which is exactly when structure slips and fillers cluster. Altura Coach offloads the self-monitoring so you can focus on your ideas, and coaches the delivery habits that help you sound as clear and confident as you actually are.