How Teams by Activated Human works: the loop, the Glass Wall, and what your team actually sees
Teams runs as a loop with five moves. The lead declares the team's mission, values, and goals in a guided session, and that context pack loads into a genuinely private AI companion for every member, called Teal. Each member's companion coaches their real working day against that mission, privately, with no manager surface anywhere in the product. What reaches the team has no names attached, under Glass Wall rules: every member and the lead see the identical Team Mirror, nothing that is a property of a person is eligible to cross at all, and each member previews and can pull anything of theirs before it lands. Beyond that, only what a member raises themselves travels: an ask articulated in their own words, sent by their explicit act, with their name on it if they choose. The next Mirror opens with what changed since the last one, so the whole team watches feedback land.
That is the entire mechanism. The rest of this page walks each move slowly, because the details are where the trust either holds or does not.
Where does the companion get its context?
The loop starts pointing down. The lead runs a guided session and declares what the team is actually for: the mission, the values, the current goals, and how the team operates day to day. That declaration becomes the org context pack, and it loads into every member's companion as coaching context.
This is the difference between Teal and a generic assistant. A generic assistant knows nothing about why your team exists. Teal carries the declared mission into every conversation, so when a member is stuck, frustrated, or deciding where to put their energy, the companion can hold the real question: where does what you care about meet what this team is trying to do?
What does a member's companion do all day?
The companion is built to be the best mentor in the company, and it works for the member, not for the org. It coaches the member's real day against the declared mission: it names where their energy already meets it, says honestly where it does not, and helps the member either reshape the work or route a signal upward. It is also the private container for the things that today have nowhere safe to go. Frustration held alone corrodes the person; frustration vented sideways corrodes the team. A private place to put it, with something that can actually help metabolize it, is team infrastructure, not a perk.
The companion coaches with org context but never speaks for the org inside the member's space. The design bet is that the moment members sense the org talking through a friendly mask, answers go survey shaped and every downstream picture goes dead. Honesty is the fuel for everything below, so the companion's loyalty is structural.
This is also the two for one at the heart of the product: the buyer pays for the team picture, and every member gets a genuinely private companion free. Each half is what makes the other true.
How does anything cross to the team level?
Passively, and only under Glass Wall rules. The rule in one line: what crosses has no names attached. Four mechanics hold that up, and each is a property of the system rather than a promise in a policy:
- Symmetry. Everyone sees the identical Team Mirror the lead sees. There is no manager view, no admin view, no back room. One render, whole team.
- The subject rule. What crosses is a property of the work, never a property of a person. Person-shaped material is withheld before the model ever sees it and checked again after, the model never sees a user id, and a move the lead's companion suggests on the strength of withheld material gets dropped. This runs in code, not in an admin setting someone could change.
- Contribution preview. Each member sees exactly what of theirs is about to feed the aggregate, before it lands, and can pull any item. Pulled items never appear anywhere.
- No individual egress. There are no individual dashboards, no sentiment scores on people, no flight-risk flags, and no productivity tracking anywhere in the product. Not settings turned off. Not built.
The result is that the org only ever sees the weather, never a person. For the generic version of this pattern and why it has to be architecture rather than policy, see what a Glass Wall is. For why the anonymity promises of survey tools fail exactly here, see are engagement surveys really anonymous.
What can a member raise on purpose?
Aggregation is passive. Raised signals are the active channel: member-initiated, companion-assisted feedback that goes up to the lead rather than to the whole team. The member chooses the shape each time: their name on it, no name attached, or neither, letting the thing fold into the team's pattern in the Mirror instead. Choosing no name carries no conditions, and a nameless signal still reaches the lead. Two hard rules govern them. Nothing routes until it has become an actual ask the member endorses word for word, because venting is not feedback yet; venting stays private forever, and only asks travel. And no signal travels raw: the why goes with the what, and the lead's own companion frames the incoming signal before the lead reads it, so that "I want to do great work here" lands as what it is. A signal reaching the lead alone is not a back room. A back room is somewhere a lead can look without you; this is a door only you can open, and you decide what is written on it. The full mechanics are on the Team Mirror and raised signals page.
How does the loop close?
The lead's companion is aggregate-aware and raised-signal-aware, never individual-aware. It converts signal into concrete moves: a 1:1 opener, a goal restaffed against someone's actual passion, a ritual changed. Then the next Team Mirror opens with the delta: what changed since last time, rendered for everyone at once.
This is the move the whole category skips. The listening research keeps finding the same gap: 92 percent of employees say it is important that their company listens to feedback, and just 7 percent say their company acts on feedback really well (Qualtrics, 2021 Employee Experience Trends). People stop giving signal to channels that eat it. Teams is built so that acting on feedback is visible to the entire team, in the same artifact, at the same moment, which is what makes giving signal rational again.
What does the org see, concretely?
The contrast, made explicit:
| What the member sees | What the lead sees |
|---|---|
| Their private conversations with Teal | Never these, in any form, ever |
| Their work profile and personal insight report | Never these |
| Their contribution preview, with the right to pull any item | Nothing about who contributed what |
| The Team Mirror | The exact same Team Mirror, same render |
| Team patterns, no names attached | The same patterns, same render |
| Their own raised-signal drafts, private until sent | Only signals the member chose to send: the ask plus its why |
The lead gets exactly two things members do not: the raised-signal inbox, and a companion of their own that coaches the leading itself. Both are aggregate-aware and never individual-aware.
What does Teams not do?
The limits are part of the mechanism:
- It starts at three seats. Most teams do best at five to fifteen, because past a handful of people a lead stops being able to hold the whole picture in their head, and that is the gap the Mirror fills. Bigger than fifteen, get in touch and we will set it up.
- It does not do performance management. No reviews, no compensation cycles, no goal-cascade machinery, no HRIS integrations. Teams that need that machinery should buy it from the suites that build it well.
- It cannot force honesty. If members do not use their companions, the Mirror is thin. The design bet is that daily private value is what earns real use, but it is a bet, stated as one: the product launched in August 2026 and has no track record yet.
- It is not therapy. Teal is a work companion. When something heavier is happening, it points to real resources.
Questions people ask
Can my manager read my conversations?
No. There is no surface in the product where any individual's conversations, profile, or contributions render for anyone else, at any permission level. The way to verify this is structural: everyone sees the identical Team Mirror, so there is nothing manager-only to hide an individual view inside.
Does a theme need several people behind it to show up?
No. What decides whether an observation can cross is what it is about, not how many people said it. A property of the work can travel with one person behind it; a property of a person cannot travel at any number. One person seeing something clearly is often the most useful thing a team knows, and a contributor count would have thrown it away.
Does the lead see who raised a signal?
Only if the member put it there. They choose the shape each time: their name on it, no name attached, or neither, letting the thing fold into the team's pattern in the Mirror instead. Choosing no name carries no conditions, and a nameless signal still reaches the lead. Nothing leaves the member's space without their explicit act, in words they endorsed.
What does the team actually receive at the end of a cycle?
The Team Mirror: values mapped against the declared mission, a strengths picture, an energy read, friction themes with no names attached, and alignment opportunities where someone's actual passion fits an actual goal. From the second Mirror on, it opens with what changed.
Is this an employee survey?
No. Nobody fills out an instrument, there are no response rates to chase, and there is no quarterly window. The team picture is a byproduct of a companion each person uses because it helps them, which is precisely why the picture is true.
Teams runs a Team Mirror with your team: a private companion for every member, one picture for everyone, rendered identically. See how it works. Related: Is Teams legit? and Teams vs Lattice, Culture Amp, and BetterUp.