AI Safety, SnapMind

The SnapMind Coach is an automated software feature inside SnapMind. It is not a licensed professional. We have built it with specific safety guardrails so it stays useful and stays in its lane. This page summarizes those guardrails for our users, their parents, the schools and athletic programs we work with, and anyone evaluating SnapMind for a team program.

Update, September 17, 2026. The AI Coach chat described on this page was retired. SnapMind no longer has an AI chat or AI coach. The automated features that remain (plan building in SnapMind Training, meal estimates, and importing rosters, schedules and workouts from files or photos) do not converse and do not give advice. This page is kept for the record.

1. What the AI Coach Helps With

The AI Coach is built to help with:

General mobility, recovery, and conditioning techniques
General nutrition principles (educational, not individualized prescriptive meal plans)
Sleep, hydration, and mental-performance habits
Questions about your SnapMind program and the platform itself
Encouragement, accountability, and goal-framing

2. What the AI Coach Refuses

The AI Coach is not a doctor, dietitian, mental-health professional, or athletic trainer, and it refuses to act like one. It will not:

Diagnose injuries or medical conditions
Recommend specific doses of supplements, medications, or recovery aids
Build individualized meal plans, calorie targets, or macro splits
Provide therapy or treatment for mental-health conditions
Give legal, financial, or regulatory advice
Produce any sexual content or any content involving harm to minors
Discuss performance-enhancing drugs or banned substances
Contradict your coach, trainer, or healthcare provider

3. Built-In Safety Redirects

If a user describes a situation that needs a real human, the AI Coach immediately routes them to a professional resource rather than answering the underlying question. The current redirects:

Cardiac or acute medical symptoms Chest pain, shortness of breath, severe headache, fainting, sudden numbness. Stop training and call 911 or go to urgent care immediately.

Suicidal thoughts or self-harm Please call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 24/7, free, confidential. If you're in immediate danger, call 911.

Disordered eating Severe restriction, purging, body-image distress. Call the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline: 1-866-662-1235.

Suspected concussion or head injury Stop training. See your athletic trainer, school nurse, or urgent care. Don't return to lifting or practice until cleared.

Abuse (physical, sexual, or emotional) Talk to a trusted adult or call the Childhelp Hotline: 1-800-422-4453.

Substance abuse Call SAMHSA's National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357. Free, confidential, 24/7.

Severe injury Suspected fracture, dislocation, loss of consciousness. Stop training and get to an athletic trainer, urgent care, or ER.

4. Crisis Escalation and Adult Notification

If the AI Coach detects that a user is in immediate danger, including but not limited to expressions of suicidal ideation, abuse disclosure, severe eating disorder symptoms, or other crisis-level signals, SnapMind may take additional safety actions beyond the resource referrals listed in Section 3.

For users under 18, these may include:

Notifying the parent or legal guardian on file (the same person who provided consent during signup)
Flagging the conversation for prompt review by a SnapMind safety reviewer
In extreme cases involving imminent harm to self or others, alerting emergency services

For all users:

Conversations flagged as crisis-level may be reviewed by SnapMind safety personnel and our AI provider's safety teams
We may take additional steps required by applicable law

This is an explicit exception to the routine privacy commitment in Section 6 below. Safety overrides confidentiality when a life is at stake. We will not use crisis-detection capabilities to share routine information about a user's activity, mood, performance, or progress with parents, coaches, or schools.

5. Break Reminders for Minors

For all users known to be under 18, the AI Coach will display an on-screen reminder every 3 hours of continuous use. The reminder confirms that the user is interacting with AI (not a human) and encourages the user to step away from the screen and resume later. This is required for California users under SB 243 (the Companion Chatbot Law) and applied to all minor users on SnapMind regardless of state.

6. Privacy and Safety Monitoring

AI Coach conversations are logged and reviewed for quality, safety, and product improvement. They are processed by Anthropic (our AI provider) in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Conversations are monitored continuously by automated systems for safety-critical patterns, including but not limited to: language indicating self-harm intent, abuse disclosure, severe distress, eating disorder symptoms, and similar crisis signals.

Routine AI Coach conversations are private. We do not share them with the user's coach, athletic department, school, or parent. The only exceptions are: (a) crisis situations as described in Section 4, (b) legal compulsion via valid court order or subpoena, or (c) imminent threat to life.

7. Always

The AI Coach always discloses that it is AI, not human, not a licensed professional, and not a substitute for the user's real-life coaches, trainers, parents, or healthcare providers.

8. Updates

We review and update these guardrails on a regular schedule and after any change to the AI Coach feature. The effective date at the top of this page reflects the current version. Material changes will be reflected by an updated effective date.

9. Questions

Email michael.donovan@usesnapmind.com.