Academy / What's new

What Kolab can do now.

The platform changed a lot between July and October. Here's what shipped, sorted by the moment in a program where you'd use it, with a plain note on why it matters if you're running a cohort.

Designing and building

Getting session one built properly, and never rebuilding it.

Agenda templates

Save a whole session, including timers, prompts, breakouts, card decks and Interactives, and reuse it.

For your program: build session one once and the next eleven inherit it.

Paste from Miro and Mural

Stickies, shapes, text and frames arrive as native Kolab elements.

For your program: last year's boards come with you. Switching is an afternoon, not a rebuild.

Kola, the AI co-facilitator

Drafts agendas and activities from your objective, sees your board while it works, and now takes voice.

For your program: a program officer without formal facilitation training can stand up a well-structured session.

The Kolab connector for Claude

Claude can build spaces, boards, agendas and Interactives from a plain-language brief, and read results back.

For your program: if your team already works in Claude, it can do the setup for you.

Scheduled sessions and "Up next"

A space holds its upcoming sessions so returning participants see what's coming.

For your program: the space becomes a program home, not a meeting link.

200+ templates by shape and size

Search by activity type, layout, group size and session moment, not just topic.

For your program: "I need a 60-person opener" is a search, not a scroll.

Running the session

Holding the room, especially when the room splits up.

Breakout rooms with their own agendas

Assign, mix or let people choose. Each room gets its own agenda and timer, with a control view of every room and audio broadcast to all of them.

For your program: structured small-group work without a facilitator in every room.

Interactives

Live polls, quizzes, sorters and small games, as a whole-group overlay or a station on the canvas.

For your program: one less tool in the stack, and no screen share to watch.

Blind brainstorm

Notes stay hidden until you reveal them.

For your program: quieter participants contribute before the loudest idea anchors the room.

Follow the leader

Everyone's view follows yours across the board when you turn it on.

For your program: instructions land the first time.

Waiting room, music and soundboard

A waiting room with its own playlist, plus sounds you can trigger for transitions.

For your program: the first five minutes feel produced, not awkward.

Screen share by request

Participant screen share is off by default and works by request and approve.

For your program: nobody hijacks the room.

Captions, translation and low-bandwidth controls

Live captions colour-coded by speaker, in breakouts too. Opt-in chat translation. Participants can cut incoming video without turning off their own camera.

For your program: multi-country cohorts on uneven connections can actually take part.

After, and for the funder

Turning what happened into evidence.

Recording and searchable transcripts

Recordings with the recorded person's consent, plus transcripts you can search and export as Markdown or Word.

For your program: the raw material for reports is a by-product of the session. Recording is on Pro, Event Pass and program plans.

AI summaries and visual recaps

Key points, decisions and action items, plus an image recap of the board.

For your program: the follow-up email is drafted before you've closed the tab.

Session history and analytics for every team

Who came, and how they participated, including per-speaker talk time.

For your program: observed engagement data, not a satisfaction survey.

Privacy controls

AI can be switched off entirely per space. Kolab doesn't train AI models on participant speech.

For your program: a clean answer when your IT or data protection team asks.

Want the full list? The Kolab changelog has every change with dates. This page covers the ones that matter most for programs. Security details are on the security page.

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