Honesty is more productive.
Most tools want your attention; Ren wants your growth. Hard truths for Microsoft Teams are officially here.
"When people believe the conversation is with an impartial computer, they feel safer, and that can lead to more honest, detailed responses."
—Gale Lucas, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Dr. Lucas’s team found that when people knew they were talking to an automated system, they dropped the "performance." They were less worried about being judged and more willing to say what they actually felt.
That study perfectly captures the reaction to last week’s “Salty, but Kind” post.
I expected to hear from the usual tech early adopters. Instead, I got a wave of replies from executives and HR leaders who have been watching from the sidelines. They weren’t responding to the AI part; they were responding to the accountability part. They want to know if technology can finally give every leader a coach who knows them well enough to say the hard thing at exactly the right moment.
That’s what we’re building. When you onboard with Ren, it learns your voice and your context. It doesn't lead with a sledgehammer; it earns the right to be direct.
And we’re seeing exactly what Dr. Lucas predicted. In a truly private space with no "boss" watching and no judgment, people stop performing. They bring the doubts they’d never admit in a meeting and the patterns they’ve been avoiding for years. The safety isn’t a feature; it’s the whole mechanism.
Ren on Teams: Truth, Handled Quietly
Last week, we brought this experience to Slack. The response was immediate, and the #1 question was: “Does it work in Teams?”
It does now. Whether you use Slack or Teams, Ren isn't a chatbot you visit when you know exactly what your problem is. It’s a context-aware presence that stays out of your way until it has something meaningful to say. It turns your real-time activity into coaching moments. Signal, not noise.
What’s Next
To truly coach, Ren needs to hear the music of your leadership, not just read the notes. To get there, here’s what’s coming next:
Meeting Transcripts giving Ren a rich source for deeper coaching based on your 1:1s and other relevant meetings.
Desktop Companion: Bringing Ren into your field of vision so you don’t have to break your workflow when you need help.
Note on Teams setup: To meet Microsoft’s security standards, your IT team just needs to upload a small app package to securely enable Ren. We’ll provide the 30-second instructions during onboarding.
At Ren, we aren't building a tool to make you more productive. There are enough of those.
We’re building a tool to keep you honest.
Try it on your own, or book a call with me to talk about Ren for your org.
— Jonathan
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