AI-Powered Communication Skills Training with SimChat

Helping learners develop confident, patient-centred communication usually depends on limited teaching time and access to simulated patients. It can be difficult to provide sufficient practice across large cohorts, different campuses, and varied clinical programmes.

SimChat, built by the Geeky Medics team, uses AI to make communication skills training more flexible and scalable.

Educators can turn existing cases into interactive consultations, run them in text, voice or video formats and review how learners communicate, all within a single platform.

How SimChat uses AI

SimChat combines educator-written scenario scripts with advanced AI models to simulate realistic clinical conversations. The underlying script provides the clinical detail, context and constraints, while the AI adapts the interaction to what the learner actually says.

During a simulation, the AI:

• Interprets the learner’s questions, explanations and summaries in real time
• Generates responses based on the scenario script, ensuring clinical and contextual accuracy
• Adjusts tone, emotional expression and communication style to suit the scenario
• Produces a full transcript for feedback, reflection and educator review

This approach combines the consistency of a structured scenario with the flexibility of AI, allowing learners to experience consultations that feel more lifelike than reading a static case or following a scripted role-play.

Communication scenarios you can train with

SimChat is designed for communication-focused simulations. Common use cases include:

• History taking across a range of specialties and settings
• Counselling and information giving, such as explaining diagnoses, investigations and treatment options
• Difficult conversations, including breaking bad news, managing complaints and responding to anger or distress
• Interprofessional communication, for example, escalation, handover and multidisciplinary discussions

Scenarios can be adjusted in terms of complexity and emotional intensity so that the same case can be used with early learners and more advanced trainees.

Using AI to build scenarios from your own materials

Developing new simulation content from scratch can be time-consuming. SimChat is built to reuse the teaching materials you already rely on, such as:

• OSCE and communication skills station scripts
• Case-based learning scenarios
• Existing clinical cases and vignettes

Educators can paste or import this content into SimChat, outline the key learning objectives and then use AI to generate an interactive consultation.

The scenario can be refined, tagged and added to a shared library so it is available to colleagues teaching on other modules or sites.

Delivering AI-powered simulations at scale

Once scenarios are created, SimChat provides tools to run them consistently across large cohorts. Within the platform, educators can:

• Organise cases in a central, searchable library aligned to modules or programmes
• Choose whether learners interact using text, audio or video avatars
• Control access for specific groups, cohorts or sites
• Share simulations by link or integrate them with existing learning platforms

Learners can complete simulations during timetabled teaching, on placement, or in their own time, making it easier to offer repeated practice without additional in-person sessions.

AI feedback, analytics and educator review

Every consultation in SimChat generates data that can support learning and quality improvement. The platform can provide:

• Automated feedback focusing on key aspects of communication
• Session transcripts that learners and educators can review together
• Cohort-level views showing engagement and common areas of difficulty

Educators can also review individual transcripts and add tailored comments for each learner, combining AI-generated insight with their own expertise.