Updates

August 16, 2026

Launch

Presence Brief is live

Usually you get an invitation and a position description, and nothing else. Nine responsibilities, eight qualifications, no ranking, and no indication which of them the panel actually weighs. Brief reads that document closely and says so. Which requirement it spends the most on and why, which lines were carried over wholesale from an older posting and can be deprioritized, what's unusual to see in a role like this, what comparable postings say that this one pointedly doesn't, and where the questioning will most likely concentrate. Two minutes of setup, the level of the role and whether the process is competency-scored, decides how it reads, because a mandated rubric and an executive search are not the same room. And every line is tagged to what it came from, so you can always tell the difference between something the document says and something Brief concluded.

• AddedPresence Brief. Paste the posting and get it decoded, section by section, with the three findings that should change how you prepare ranked at the top.
• AddedOne free card, no account. Pick the single thing you most want to know and get a real answer to it, reasoned in full, not a locked preview. Unlocking the rest of the brief costs two credits, and the brief never expires.
• AddedAnything else you have sharpens the read. A strategic plan, earnings language, recent news, a panel list. All optional, all tagged where they're used, and nothing is sent anywhere until you run a card.
• AddedRefine. Push back on a finding you think is wrong, or tell the analyst something about this room it couldn't have known from the materials, and the brief is rewritten with what you said marked as coming from you.
• AddedWhat to prepare. The findings worth building interview material for, each with who's likely listening and what backs it, which is where a brief hands off to Presence Story.
• AddedExport. The brief as a Markdown file, the assignments on their own, or everything at once.

August 15, 2026

Starting a story

One episode, not a career

Watching someone use Presence Story for the first time turned up a problem with a single word. In ordinary English a story is a chronology, so an instruction to write yours without worrying about polish reads as an invitation to start at the beginning and keep going. The coach handles that, but it costs you a turn to find out. The draft screen now names the scope where you actually read it, in the heading, in the line beneath it, and by example in the box itself. One situation, one decision, one thing that happened. The question field changed for the same reason. It used to ask for the interviewer's wording, which nobody can know before they're in the room, and now asks what kind of question the story answers, which you can.

• ChangedThe draft screen says how much to write. One episode rather than a career, said in the heading and shown in the box, so the choice is yours to make deliberately rather than one you discover a turn later.
• ChangedThe question field asks what the story answers, not the exact words an interviewer will use. Your stories are organized by what they show and can be renamed at any time, so tying one to a guess was never right. Nothing you've already saved changed.
• ChangedYou can see when your story is rewritten. On a wide screen the story sits beside the coach, so a new draft used to arrive silently while you were reading the other side. The coach's log now marks the moment, and the marker stays until you've looked.

July 30, 2026

Your stories

The one sentence you carry in

A finished story is longer than anything you'll say out loud. So when you finish one now, Presence Story pulls out the single sentence worth carrying, and tells you which beat it came from and why that beat is the one. It isn't always the line you'd have picked yourself, and that's the point. An execution story anchors on what verifiably changed, a senior answer on the position you took, a manager's on what it changed in how you operate. The anchor then travels with the story, onto the card in Your stories and into the file you download, so you can see what a story amounts to without opening it.

• AddedThe anchor sentence. "Generate anchor" now finishes a story. One sentence lifted from your final draft, with a short note on which beat it came from and why. It costs nothing and doesn't spend a credit.
• AddedRebuild. Say the story aloud from the anchor alone, with the page hidden, then bring it back and see what you left out. It's the check that tells you whether the story is actually yours yet.
• AddedThe anchor travels. It appears on the story's card in Your stories, and at the top of the file when you export.
• Changed"Generate anchor" replaces "Mark finished." It locks the story the same way. Reopen still works, and your anchor stays put, marked as belonging to an earlier draft. Finish again and you can keep the old one, take the new one, or write your own.
• ChangedThe gaps the coach flags now say what they refer to. A missing beat has no place to sit beside, so its marker used to read only "Missing." Each one now names its subject and opens to a line explaining it, on a touch screen as well as a mouse.
• ChangedYou can see the coach working. While a reply is being written, the workspace shows it's underway rather than sitting still.

July 30, 2026

Starting a story

Start with what you have

The screen where a story begins now opens on the draft itself. Before, the optional question came first and the walkthrough, the one thing that helps if you're staring at a blank box, sat folded away below the fold where you'd never find it. Both ways in are now visible without scrolling. Paste what you have, or work through it a beat at a time. And if you type in the walkthrough, you can watch your draft fill in as you go, rather than pressing a button and hoping.

• ChangedThe draft comes first. It sits directly under the heading and has room to write in. The question moves below it, marked optional, because it is.
• ChangedThe walkthrough is a tab, not a drawer. "Paste what you have" and the beat-by-beat walkthrough sit side by side, so you can see both without opening anything.
• ChangedThe walkthrough writes straight into your draft. What you type appears in the draft as you type it, and anything you'd already pasted stays ahead of it. Switching between the two loses nothing.
• ChangedThe button says what happens next. "Start the coach," and it waits until there's a draft to start on, instead of letting you into an empty workspace where nothing happens.
• Removed"Add this to my draft." The draft now keeps up on its own.

July 30, 2026

The coach

What the free story covers, plainly

Your first story is free, and it's worth saying exactly how far that goes rather than letting you find the edge mid-sentence. A free story runs five exchanges with the coach. Enough to get a critique, answer the questions it asks, and take back a revision. A paid story keeps what it always had, unlimited iteration on that story, for as long as you want to keep working it. One other boundary is now enforced rather than assumed. A credit buys one experience. If you finish a story and then start describing a different situation, the coach will say so and hold where it is, instead of quietly starting over on a story you haven't paid for.

• AddedA stated length for the free story. Five exchanges with the coach. Paid stories are unchanged and still iterate without limit.
• ChangedOne story means one experience. Rewriting your draft, at any length, is the work and always has been. Swapping in a different experience partway through is a new story, and the coach now says so rather than re-critiquing it.
• ChangedA cap on a single message. Around 4,000 characters, which is a generous account of an experience and short of a pasted resume or transcript.

July 25, 2026

Launch

Presence Story is live

A minute of setup assigns your target structure, STAR, STAR+, or four-beat, based on the level of the role and whether the process is competency-scored. Paste a draft, notes, or fragments, and the coach takes it from there. Critique, clarifying questions, a revision in your own words, and as many iterations as you need. Nothing is invented, no fact and no number. Your first story is free, with no account required until you're ready to run the coach. After that, credits start at $39 for four and never expire.

• AddedPresence Story. A hosted coach that turns a rough draft into an interview story built for the structure your room scores, with unlimited iteration and export on every story.

August 1, 2026

Credits

One balance, spendable anywhere

Credits used to belong to Presence Story. They now belong to you. A single balance sits on your account and can be spent in any Presence product, so a pack you bought to work on your answers isn’t stranded there in the week you need a role decoded instead. A STAR story costs one credit, a four-beat story or unlocking a full brief costs two, and a $39 pack is four credits. Two briefs, four answers, or any mix you like. They never expire. None of it applies to your first go in either product, which is free.

• ChangedCredits are per person, not per product. Anything you had already bought carries over untouched and is now spendable in both.
• ChangedOne place to see it. Your balance and your purchases live on your account rather than inside one product, and checkout is the same wherever you start from.