Everything on Comms With AI up to now has helped you make something. The library gives you the structure, Plan turns a need into a brief and a route, and the toolkits bundle the whole job.
None of it told you whether the thing you made was any good.
Message Test does that. Paste a draft, choose who is receiving it, and get a structured read on how it is likely to land. It is free to try, and it is live now.
What you get back
Seven things, in this order:
The verdict. One sentence, plainly. No score, no grade.
How it lands. Two or three sentences on the likely reception.
What they hear. Three lines. The message actually received, which is often not the message written. This is usually the part that stings.
What they push back on. Three objections, each with an answer you could actually give. An answer that only restates the draft does not count.
What is missing. The fact, the date, the figure or the acknowledgement this audience needs and the draft does not contain.
Trust signals. Evidence, named accountability, specificity, sourcing. Present or not, with a note on what would fix it.
A tightened rewrite. Under 150 words, built only from the facts already in your draft. Anything it cannot supply is left in square brackets for you to fill.
Eleven audiences, or describe your own
The audience is the whole point, so the list is built around who actually receives comms work rather than who buys it:
Trade journalist. Sceptical frontline employee. Time-poor executive or board member. Existing customer. Prospective customer. Funder or grant-maker. Regulator or compliance reviewer. Elected representative. Member of a membership body. Line manager cascading the message. Client approver.
Or describe your own in a sentence or two, and it will assess against that.
The same draft against two audiences is where most of the value sits. A redundancy announcement read as an employee and then as a line manager who has to defend it tomorrow produces two different sets of problems.
A worked example
Here is a real one. This draft, tested against the sceptical frontline employee:
Following a review of our operating model, we are creating a simpler structure. Regrettably a number of roles will be affected. Consultation begins shortly and we will support colleagues throughout. We remain committed to our people and our values, and are confident this change sets us up for the future.
The verdict came back: “This draft will not land. It is exactly the kind of message this audience has learned to distrust.”
Under what they hear:
- “People are losing jobs and we are not being told how many or who.”
- “This has already been decided. Consultation is a formality.”
- “Leadership is not carrying any cost here.”
Under trust signals, three of four marked as absent, including “‘Shortly’ is not a date. This audience will treat it as evasion.”
That is what an experienced comms person would tell you if they had twenty minutes to read your draft properly. Here it took about twenty seconds.
What it is not
It is an assessment of how an audience of the type you choose is likely to receive your draft, drawing on communications practice. It is not research, and it does not predict what any particular real person will think or do. If you need to know what your actual stakeholders think, ask them. This is a second pair of eyes before you do.
Two other things worth saying plainly.
It will not invent your evidence. If the rewrite would be stronger with a proof point your draft does not have, it says so under what is missing rather than supplying a number that does not exist.
It will not help a message mislead the people reading it. If a draft appears designed to conceal something material, it names that rather than helping it land better. That is a deliberate limit, and you are welcome to test it.
Nothing you paste in is stored.
How to use it
Message Test is here. Guests get two tests a day. A free account gets five, no card needed.
It works best on a real draft rather than a summary of one, and it works best when you run the same draft past a second audience.
One more thing
Membership is now open. £20 a month gets you Message Test and Plan without a daily limit, on fair use.
The first 20 members keep 20% off for as long as they stay, and the discount applies itself at checkout. See what is included.
The free library stays free, as it always has.