What's new in Ovida (16 September 2026)

Relationships can now be shared, and practising with someone is tied more closely to your real meetings with them.

New and improved

Share a relationship, the way you already share a skill. A relationship can now be shared with someone on the same team, so a coach or a colleague can follow how a working relationship is developing and give you feedback on it. The Relationships page has a filter for relationships shared with you, and a search box for finding one by name once you are tracking a few.

Your practice partner is your counterpart, not a character you pick. Starting a roleplay from a relationship no longer asks you to choose a persona or a name. Both are taken from the person the relationship is about. The practice partner is built from your meetings with that person and nothing else, so the conversation sounds like the one you are preparing for rather than a generic scenario.

Because of that, a relationship needs at least one meeting before you can practise. Ovida builds the practice partner from your recorded conversations with that person, so until you have added one, the roleplay options on a relationship are unavailable and tell you what to add.

Voice and gender stay as you set them. Choose a voice and a gender for a counterpart once and Ovida remembers them for that relationship, so every later roleplay with that person starts the same way. Both remain yours to change at any time, and a choice made for one relationship does not affect any other.

Starting a relationship takes fewer steps. Where your organisation has only one relationship type, or a type applies to only one team, Ovida selects it for you rather than asking you to pick from a list of one.

Filling in your profile is optional again. You can add your role and your working context whenever suits you, rather than being asked for them before you start a skill. The details still make feedback more specific to your situation, so they are worth adding when you have a moment.

Fixes and improvements

This release also includes a wide set of fixes and polish across relationships, skills, roleplays, meetings and the admin tools. Roleplays start more quickly, the skills list loads reliably however many you have, the meeting picker on a relationship offers a more precise set of meetings, and the chat thread keeps you posted while a longer answer is being prepared. A number of on-screen messages now explain more clearly what has happened and what to do next.

Getting help

If you have a question about anything in this release, email support@ovida.io