ConversationPilot vs Poised: a live coach for after 8 October

What is happening to Poised

Poised's homepage carries a banner announcing that the product is shutting down on 8 October 2026, and the sign-in app states that Poised retires on 9 October 2026 and has stopped taking new sign-ups. As of 14 September 2026 the vendor had published no migration path, no data-export instructions and no post-shutdown refund guidance; its refund policy stops refunding annual plans after the sixth month.

If you are a paying Poised user, three things are worth doing before the date: export or screenshot any trend data and meeting summaries you want to keep, check whether an annual plan renewed recently (the policy allows refunds inside the first six months), and decide what you actually used Poised for, because the alternatives split along that line.

Two different kinds of coach

Poised coached delivery. Its overlay showed meters and gentle alerts for filler words, speaking pace, hedging phrases, conciseness, interruptions, energy and, using your webcam, eye contact and facial expression. After the meeting it produced a Poised Score, transcript metrics and a personal plan with lessons and challenges. It listened to you, in English only, and by design paid no attention to what the other person said.

ConversationPilot coaches content. It listens to both sides of the call through your computer's system audio, transcribes them separately, and shows short cards while the conversation is happening: the next question to ask, a reframe for the objection you just heard, a buying or candidate signal, and how far you are through qualification. When the call ends you get a transcript, a scorecard and a scored report with next actions and a follow-up email draft. It works in the language the call is held in, with automatic detection.

If what you valued in Poised was hearing that you said "um" nine times, ConversationPilot will not replace that. If what you valued was a private coach that made your calls go better, and you are in sales, recruitment, customer success or fundraising, it replaces the outcome with a different mechanism.

• Poised: how you sound (filler words, pace, energy, hedging, eye contact); you only; English only; webcam used.
• ConversationPilot: what to say next (questions, objections, signals, qualification); both sides of the call; any language; no camera.

How each one hears the call

Both products are bot-free: nothing joins your meeting and nothing appears in the participant list. Poised captured your microphone and webcam locally and streamed them to its servers; on a Mac it routed the meeting's speaker output through a "Poised Speaker" virtual audio device, and it stated that it was designed to listen only to you.

ConversationPilot captures your microphone and the meeting audio as two separate streams so it knows who said what. On macOS 14.2 or later it does this with one system permission (System Audio Recording) and no driver; older Macs use a guided one-time install of the free BlackHole driver; Windows needs nothing extra. A built-in sound check with two meters and a test tone confirms both sides reach the app before your first real call.

Privacy: what is stored, and what is said to the other person

Poised's terms had users consent to Poised storing audio and video recordings of them during meetings on Poised's systems, while stating that it did not retain audio or video of other participants. Its marketing also leaned on the promise that other participants would not know you were using it.

ConversationPilot takes a different line on both points. Audio is transcribed in short clips and never stored, on our servers or on your device; only text is kept, and you can delete any call or your whole account. Nothing you say is used to train any model. The overlay stays off your screen share so your notes stay yours, but we do not market concealment: before you start coaching, the app offers a one-line disclosure you can say or paste, in the call's language, and our Terms ask you to tell people where the law requires it. Coaching signals come from the words spoken, never from voice tone or faces.

Pricing compared

Poised's Communication Coach Pro was US$19 a month, or US$13 a month billed annually (US$156 a year), with a free plan limited to two meetings a week and a Team plan on custom pricing. Prices were in US dollars only.

ConversationPilot's Solo plan is $39 a month or $384 a year, also available in GBP and EUR, with Team at $59 per seat and Manager at $89 per seat. There is a Free plan with three recorded calls a month and no live coaching, and a 7-day trial that asks for a card but never charges an account that has not used the product: an unused trial is extended, then cancelled, rather than billed. Solo is roughly twice Poised Pro; you are paying for both sides of the call being heard, for content coaching rather than delivery metrics, and for the post-call report.

Where Poised was better

Fairness matters more than a sale here. Poised was excellent at the thing it did: a low, steady stream of feedback about your own delivery, tracked over months, with a coaching plan built from your own habits. Its live speaker notes that ticked themselves off as you covered each point were a genuinely useful presenting aid. It ran happily on Macs back to macOS 10.15 and on any Windows 10 machine, and it cost under twenty dollars.

ConversationPilot does none of the delivery measurement, does not use the camera, and is built for conversations with a counterpart rather than for presentations or all-hands talks. If your work is mostly presenting to a room, a dedicated delivery coach is still the right category, and several remain on the market.

What a Poised user gets on day one

The setup takes about three minutes on Windows and on a recent Mac. Sign up, answer three questions about your calls, watch a replayed call with live coaching cards, then install the desktop app and run the sound check. Upload your pitch, your price list or the job description you are hiring for, and the cards will quote your own material back to you at the right moment.

The first real difference you will notice is that the coach reacts to the other person. When a prospect says "send me an email" or a candidate hesitates over notice period, a card appears with what to ask next. The second is the report: instead of a delivery score you get a scorecard against your qualification framework, the signals that were detected, and a follow-up email ready to edit.

Try it before Poised switches off

The 7-day trial covers the whole product, including live coaching on real calls. If you start it now you can run it side by side with Poised until 8 October and decide with both in front of you. Nothing is charged before you have used it, and cancelling is one click on the billing page.