Multimedia Plus Launches INCITE Coach, Bringing AI-Powered Rehearsal Into Frontline Retail Training

New INCITE® module combines spoken AI role play, retailer-defined scoring and MMP AI Studio authoring for sales, service and manager conversations.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Multimedia Plus (MMP), creators of the mobile-first frontline platform INCITE^®, today announced the launch of INCITE Coach, a spoken AI rehearsal module that gives retail associates and managers a place to practice the conversations their jobs demand before those conversations happen for real.

INCITE Coach extends retail learning beyond instruction and assessment into active rehearsal. After completing training in INCITE^®, an associate or manager can immediately enter a voice-based scenario, interact with an AI-powered character and receive feedback scored against the retailer’s own standards — including evidence from the conversation and one specific behavior to work on next.

The result is a direct progression from learn, to practice, to improve, delivered inside the platform frontline teams already use.

Retail training has long been able to show employees what good looks like and assess whether they understand it. Practicing the behavior itself has been harder to deliver consistently. A manager may understand how to address an associate whose attachment rate has slipped, but still need to rehearse the conversation. An associate may know the right response to a price objection, but have little opportunity to practice saying it naturally before a customer is standing in front of them.

With INCITE Coach, that first attempt no longer has to happen when the stakes are real.

“Knowing the right behavior and being able to use it under pressure are two different skills,” said David Harouche, CEO and Founder of Multimedia Plus. “INCITE Coach gives every associate and manager a place to rehearse the conversation before it counts. And because the practice is part of INCITE, leaders can move beyond knowing who completed training to seeing where people are ready and where they may still need coaching.”

A key differentiator is the instructional design behind each conversation. INCITE Coach scenarios can be built around more than a surface-level objection or scripted response. Characters can have motivations, concerns or information that the learner must uncover through questioning, listening and judgment.

“What makes role play valuable isn’t simply having an AI character talk back to you — it’s what that character has been designed to teach,” said Jodi Harouche, President and Chief Creative Officer of Multimedia Plus. “A good scenario gives the learner something to discover. Our clients can start with scenarios informed by decades of retail instructional design, then adapt the language, policies, behaviors and characters to reflect how their own organization wants people to perform.”

Key capabilities of INCITE Coach include:

Practice Built Into Learning
Role plays can be attached directly to a training topic and delivered as the next step after the lesson inside INCITE^® — without sending the learner to a separate application.

Natural Spoken Conversation
Learners speak with the AI character rather than typing into a chat window. During the interaction, the focus stays on listening, responding and navigating the conversation naturally.

Retailer-Defined Scoring With Evidence
Performance is evaluated against the retailer’s own behavioral rubric. The debrief identifies the evidence behind the evaluation so managers and learners can understand why a behavior earned its score.

One Specific Thing to Improve
Rather than overwhelming learners with feedback, the debrief identifies a single priority to focus on during the next conversation or shift, with the full scored assessment available underneath.

Scenarios Beyond the Sale
INCITE Coach supports selling and customer service scenarios as well as peer and manager conversations — from coaching performance and reinforcing standards to navigating difficult workplace discussions.

Retail Expertise Built In
Clients can begin with a library of scenarios informed by Multimedia Plus’ nearly three decades of retail training and instructional design experience, then adapt them to their own needs.

Created and Customized Through MMP AI Studio
Retailers can rename and rewrite scenarios, incorporate company language and policies, select or recast characters, preview voices and publish the completed experience into INCITE^®.

One Character From Video to Conversation
A scenario can begin with a video created in MMP AI Studio and continue into spoken practice with the same character, connecting visual storytelling, training and rehearsal in one experience.

INCITE Coach is part of a broader shift from delivering frontline content to building frontline readiness. By connecting training, spoken practice, feedback and manager visibility, retailers can give employees more opportunities to build confidence before important customer and employee interactions occur.

And because INCITE Coach connects with MMP AI Studio, organizations can create both the content that teaches the behavior and the scenario that lets employees practice it, within the same MMP ecosystem.

“AI gives us an opportunity to do something we couldn’t practically do for every associate and every manager before — give them the chance to practice,” Harouche added. “The technology makes that possible at scale. Our focus is making sure what they’re practicing actually reflects the brand, the business and the real conversations happening in stores.”

INCITE Coach is available now to INCITE^® clients, enabled by company, with scenarios created and customized through MMP AI Studio.

For more information or to schedule a demonstration, visit:
www.multimediaplus.com/incite-coach

About Multimedia Plus
Multimedia Plus (MMP) has been helping leading retailers train, communicate with and engage frontline teams since 1997. Through its flagship platform, INCITE^®, MMP enables organizations to deliver training, communications and operational initiatives to frontline employees while providing leadership with real-time visibility into participation, understanding and performance.

MMP AI Studio expands those capabilities with AI-powered content creation, enabling organizations to create branded training video and interactive experiences faster and at scale. With INCITE Coach, Multimedia Plus connects learning, content creation and spoken rehearsal — giving frontline teams not only a way to see what good looks like, but a place to practice it before it matters.

Nataly Blumberg
NB Communications
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Multimedia Plus Launches INCITE Coach Bringing AI-Powered Rehearsal Into Frontline Retail Training