The one-minute no: four coaches Ember Console is not for

Ember Console is a session-report builder for coaches, in closed beta at $8 a month with 5 free sessions a month. Four kinds of coach should not join it, and three of the four are settled by what goes into it and what comes out, not by any feature.

Call it the one-minute no. I would rather you ruled yourself out here than after the beta opens.

Which four coaches should rule Ember Console out?

The first three come out of r/lifecoaching threads on notes and recording. The fourth is mine.

If this is you	What Ember does instead	Fit
Your client writes their own takeaways	Builds a report you send, on your letterhead	No
You will not record a session	Records the session, or takes a recording you made	No
You want the transcript, not a write-up	Fills your template’s boxes, editable in its dashboard	No
You need a storage or compliance answer today	Says nothing public about either	Not yet

Who does the work decides the first row. “I ask clients to make the notes they feel they need from the session,” writes one commenter in an r/lifecoaching thread on AI notetakers, and a report you send takes that job back off them.

The second row is the shortest: the input is a recording, so a coach who keeps none has nothing to feed it. In a thread on session notes that drew 68 comments, one coach takes none at all, because of what would be missed by not being fully present.

Does a session report mean the session was recorded?

Yes, and the landing page is plain about the input: “Stop managing recordings, letterheads, language preferences, and AI prompts by hand.”

So the consent conversation comes before the software. The International Coaching Federation publishes a Release of Confidential Information Form sample for recording and releasing sessions, required for its credential applications, which tells you the paperwork is ordinary and nothing about your jurisdiction.

In a thread about a coach recording a Zoom session without asking, the top reply at 26 points says Zoom allows meetings to be recorded by default; another says permission has to come first. Those are accounts, not rules, so ask your client and check the law where you both sit.

What is not stated yet?

The fourth row is mine to fix and I have not fixed it. Four questions with no public answer:

1. Where a recording is held, and for how long.
2. Whether a recording can be deleted, and by whom.
3. Which standard, if any, the software is built to meet.
4. What your client is told about the first three.

Anyone who needs those answers this week should not wait on me. Ask whoever you buy from to put it in writing, and hold me to the same.

If one of the first three rows is yours, the question left is who the write-up is for.

The fourth row is a page I owe you.

Questions people ask next?

Is AI note taking considered recording?

Something is recorded either way: Ember Console records the session, or takes a recording you made elsewhere. Whether that counts as recording under your rules is for your jurisdiction, and consent is a conversation with your client.

What does Ember Console cost in the closed beta?

$8 a month, with 5 free sessions a month. The beta is closed, so there is nothing to sign up for yet, and the landing page names ChatGPT, Claude and Littlebird.