Enable and configure the Realtime Guide (in-simulation coaching)

The Realtime Guide is an optional AI coach that gives the learner short pieces of advice during the live conversation, to help them practise. It is turned off by default; you enable and configure it on the Realtime Guide page (in the Simulation Display section of the editor).

Note: configuring the guide is available to organization accounts and system administrators. If your account isn't eligible you'll see "Guide advice configuration is only available for organization users or system administrators."

Note: the Assessment, Exam and Screening purposes turn the guide off and lock it, because they measure what the learner does unaided. To use the guide, set the simulation's purpose to Training or Not set on the General Info page. See Choose a simulation's purpose.

Enable the guide

Open the Realtime Guide page. Under Realtime Guide Advice, set the Advice Frequency to anything other than Off — that turns the guide on. Setting it back to Off disables it.

Choose an advice level (Advice Frequency)

The level controls both how often advice appears and its style:

• Off — guide advice is completely disabled.
• Beginner — detailed guidance with dialogue examples (up to 5 sentences). Best for first-timers.
• Regular — concise strategic observations (up to 3 sentences).
• Custom — strategic observations with the frequency and length you set yourself.

Picking Beginner or Regular fills in sensible timing for you (Beginner starts from the very first message and can appear often; Regular starts a few messages in and is more spaced out), which you can then fine-tune.

Choose how advice is delivered (Delivery Mode)

Once the guide is on, pick a Delivery Mode:

• On-Demand — the learner clicks a button to request advice when they want it.
• Automatic — advice appears on its own at the right moments, based on the frequency settings.

Where the advice appears

In a text simulation the advice sits in the conversation itself. In a voice simulation it is behind the Advice button on the call controls, which changes to New advice when there is something fresh to read — the guide runs in voice runs exactly as it does in text ones.

The advice is labelled with the name of the simulation’s evaluator, if it has one, so coaching arrives from a named person rather than from “Guide”. Set it in the Evaluator Name field on the Feedback Chat page (see Feedback Instructions); with no evaluator named, the label stays “Guide”. The name follows the language the run is in.

Fine-tune the timing

For any active level (Beginner, Regular or Custom) you can adjust two values:

• Number of messages before first advice — how far into the conversation the first tip can appear.
• Minimal number of messages between advice — the gap enforced between tips.

Custom level

Choosing Custom adds two more controls:

• Max Sentences — how long each tip can be (3–5 sentences).
• Custom Advice Prompt — the underlying framework that shapes the guide's advice. It is pre-filled with the standard framework, which you can edit to suit your scenario.

Tips

• The guide's advice is grounded in your Theory background — filling that in gives sharper, more relevant coaching.
• Start new learners on Beginner, then move experienced learners to Regular.
• For an assessment or an exam, give the simulation the matching purpose rather than switching the guide off by hand: the purpose keeps it off — see Set up a simulation as an exam.

Remember to Save the simulation after changing these settings.

In this series

1. The simulation editor, explained
2. Create a simulation with AI
3. General settings
4. Simulation Display
5. Simulation Instructions
6. Feedback Instructions
7. The debrief
8. Formatting content with Markdown
9. Best practices & troubleshooting
10. Set up a simulation as an exam
11. Enable & configure the Realtime Guide (you are here)