AI Conversations give learners a realistic place to practice communication with an AI character or facilitator. Learners can speak or type, receive natural responses in real time, and get feedback tied to the goals you define.
You can build a standalone Conversation from the dashboard or add a Conversation tile inside a standard lesson. Standalone Conversations focus the entire learner experience on one role-play, guided discussion, or knowledge check.
Create a standalone Conversation
From the dashboard, select Create, then choose Conversation.
Describe the scenario, learner, audience, and what success should look like. You can also add Conversation skills such as Sales Roleplay or Objection Handling.
Select Let's go. The Mindsmith Agent may ask focused follow-up questions before it builds the Conversation and opens the Conversation editor.
A standalone Conversation contains one Conversation experience rather than lesson pages or other tile types. Use a standard lesson with a Conversation tile when you want to combine practice with instruction, media, or assessments.
Start from a template
The Create page also includes Conversation templates. Select Duplicate for an editable copy, or Reference to use a template as inspiration for a new Conversation.
Choose a Conversation mode
Role Play: The AI plays a character and the learner drives the conversation. Good for sales, customer service, interviews, and difficult conversations.
Discussion: The AI facilitates, asks questions, and guides the learner through a topic.
Assessment: The AI asks questions and follow-ups to test understanding without teaching the answers.
Walkthrough: The AI coaches the learner through a hands-on task in a real application, using their shared screen. This mode is in closed beta. See Guided Walkthroughs.
Configure the Conversation
The Conversation editor shows a build pane beside a live preview. Templates and Settings are at the top of the build pane. Applying a template replaces the current scenario, steps, and grading.
Scenario: Describe the situation (Role Play), topic (Discussion), or subject area (Assessment).
Introduction: Context the learner sees before starting.
Modality: Voice & Text (default), Voice Only, or Text Only.
Character: Name, subtitle, voice, likeness (image), and how they behave. To get an accent, describe it in the personality, for example "speaks with a British accent."
Steps: The stages of the Conversation. Each step has what the learner sees, private notes for the AI, Grading notes, and Maximum points. Set Shown to Graded only to grade a criterion without showing it as a step.
Example conversations: Show the AI the tone and flow you want.
Scorecard
Passing requirement: No requirement (feedback only), or a passing percentage.
Attempts allowed: No limit, or 1 to 5. Attempts of 30 seconds or less don't count.
Lock after passing: Block further attempts once the learner passes.
Optional: Learners can continue the lesson without completing the Conversation.
What learners see after grading: Choose whether to show the score, the overall feedback, and feedback for each step.
Settings
Learner speaks first: The AI waits for the learner.
Agenda starts expanded: Show the steps when the Conversation opens.
Turn taking: Automatic, or Push to talk so the AI never interrupts. Use Push to talk if learners report being cut off.
Intro sound: None, or Ringback for a phone-call feel.
Show full transcript in voice mode: Turn this off to show only the AI's latest message.
Supervisor Controls: Off by default. When enabled, the supervisor watches for the behavior you describe in What to monitor. The first violation gets a warning and the second ends the Conversation. You can name behavior that ends it immediately.
Advanced prompting: AI Rules for guardrails, and a Custom System Prompt for anything the structured settings don't cover.
The AI speaks the lesson's language, including translated versions, unless your scenario says otherwise.
Access and billing
Learner Conversations are billed separately from your plan and your AI credits. Upgrading your plan doesn't add Conversations.
What counts: Each learner session longer than 30 seconds, including retries and LMS launches. Usage is counted per session, not per learner.
What doesn't count: Testing in the editor or preview. Editor testing has daily time limits.
Free workspaces: Authors can build and test, but learners can't start Conversations until the workspace upgrades.
Professional and Business: An admin can claim 100 learner Conversations once. After that, choose pay as you go at $2 per Conversation (billed weekly), or prepay at $2 each (minimum 5).
Enterprise and high volume: Conversations are covered by your agreement. Contact Mindsmith for volume pricing.
Claim the offer in Settings → Billing. Track sessions and minutes in Settings → Usage. When the allowance runs out, learners see a message and can continue the rest of the lesson. See Billing & Credits.
The learner experience
Start: The learner reviews the introduction and agenda, then selects Begin with voice or Begin with text instead. The AI speaks first unless Learner speaks first is on.
Talk: They speak or type, and can switch between the two when both are allowed. If the microphone fails, they can continue in text.
Pause or end: A paused Conversation can be resumed later. The learner selects End chat to finish and get feedback.
Feedback: Each step is rated Well done, Needs work, or Not covered, with specific feedback. If you set a passing requirement, the learner also gets a score.
Practice again: Start Over begins a new attempt, unless an attempt limit or lock-after-passing rule applies. Learners can review past attempts and transcripts.
Conversations don't submit automatically when a learner leaves. Unfinished attempts appear as Ungraded in Analytics. Ask learners to pause or end the Conversation before closing the page.
Troubleshooting
Microphone blocked in an LMS or embed: Learners see a message that their learning platform is blocking the microphone, and they can continue in text. To allow voice, the iframe that hosts the lesson needs
allow="microphone". Ask your LMS admin to enable it.Browsers: Voice works in current Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox.
LMS completion not reporting: The lesson stops reporting to the LMS once a learner selects its Exit button, so learners should end the Conversation first. Test the full flow in your LMS before assigning it.
Where are transcripts and audio? Open the lesson's Analytics, find the Conversation tile on the Engagement tab, and select View learners. See Analytics & Reporting.
Related articles
Guided Walkthroughs: hands-on software training with a screen-aware AI coach.
Analytics & Reporting: review Conversation attempts, transcripts, recordings, and scores.
Branching Scenarios: build interactive decision trees and role-plays.
Assessment Tiles: create graded quizzes and knowledge checks.