Alternatives · Kendo AI
Lateral vs Kendo AI
Kendo AI is a full sales-training suite, AI roleplay plus automated call review and a manager dashboard, sold to teams. Lateral is the rep's own batting cage, your real product and pipeline, live in under two minutes, with nothing rolling up to a manager.
In short
- Kendo AI is a team-owned suite: customizable AI roleplay, automated call scoring against your methodology, and management analytics. It's bought per seat and run by sales leaders and enablement.
- Lateral is direct-to-rep. You sign in with your work email, and it builds spoken roleplays from your actual product and calendar, no admin setup, no rollout, nothing visible to a manager.
- Pick Kendo AI if a team wants roleplay, real-call review, and a coaching dashboard in one place. Pick Lateral if you're a rep who wants to practice the call before the call, today, for free.
A team suite vs a rep's practice tool
Kendo AI and Lateral both put reps in front of an AI prospect that talks back. Where they split is scope and owner. Kendo AI is a management and training suite: alongside roleplay, it reviews and scores your real calls automatically against your methodology, then surfaces team analytics for managers and enablement. It's a lot of surface area, bought per seat and run by leaders.
Lateral isn't a suite. It does one thing: put you in a live, spoken sales call against an AI buyer built from your real product and pipeline, and grade it the moment you hang up. There's no admin console, no call-review pipeline, and nothing that rolls up.
If you want roleplay, call review, and coaching tracked in one place for a team, Kendo AI is in that category. If you want to practice the call before the call on your own, Lateral is the focused tool.
Lateral vs Kendo AI, side by side
An honest read on where each fits. Both are legitimate ways to practice with an AI prospect; they're built for different buyers.
| Capability | Kendo AI | Lateral |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Sales teams, managers, and enablement | Individual reps practicing on their own |
| Scope | Roleplay, automated call review, management analytics | Spoken roleplay and instant grading only |
| Setup time | Per-seat plan and admin configuration first | Under two minutes, sign in with work email |
| Personalization | Custom AI prospects and scenarios a team builds | Grounded in your real product and calendar automatically |
| Practice modality | Voice roleplay plus review of real recorded calls | Voice-first, real-time spoken calls |
| Grading | Custom scorecards tied to your methodology | Instant grade on five fixed dimensions |
| Who sees your reps | Visible to managers and enablement by design | Just you, nothing rolls up to a manager |
| Languages | Multiple languages supported | 33 languages |
| Price | Per-seat plans, paid from a published Pro tier | Free in beta |
Capability
Kendo AI
- Built for
- Sales teams, managers, and enablement
- Scope
- Roleplay, automated call review, management analytics
- Setup time
- Per-seat plan and admin configuration first
- Personalization
- Custom AI prospects and scenarios a team builds
- Practice modality
- Voice roleplay plus review of real recorded calls
- Grading
- Custom scorecards tied to your methodology
- Who sees your reps
- Visible to managers and enablement by design
- Languages
- Multiple languages supported
- Price
- Per-seat plans, paid from a published Pro tier
Capability
Lateral
- Built for
- Individual reps practicing on their own
- Scope
- Spoken roleplay and instant grading only
- Setup time
- Under two minutes, sign in with work email
- Personalization
- Grounded in your real product and calendar automatically
- Practice modality
- Voice-first, real-time spoken calls
- Grading
- Instant grade on five fixed dimensions
- Who sees your reps
- Just you, nothing rolls up to a manager
- Languages
- 33 languages
- Price
- Free in beta
Grounded in your pipeline, not a built persona
Kendo AI's prospects are as good as the personas a team configures, and a well-built persona is genuinely useful. Lateral takes a different route: it reads your real product and the deals on your calendar, so the buyer pushes back on the things your actual prospects push back on, with no one authoring a scenario first.
That makes Lateral feel less like a drill and more like a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's 2pm. If you want to run your cold-call opener ten times before you dial, the buyer already knows your space.
Practice the call before the call. Then run it back until the open stops feeling like a coin flip.
When Kendo AI is the better choice
If you're a sales leader who needs roleplay, automated review of real calls, and a coaching dashboard tied together, with custom scorecards mapped to your methodology and visibility into how the team is tracking, Kendo AI is built for exactly that. Reviewing real conversations and managing a team's development is its strength, and Lateral deliberately doesn't touch a real call or report to anyone.
Choose Kendo AI when the buyer is the team and the goal is managed development across reps. Choose Lateral when the buyer is one rep who wants reps now, in private, without asking anyone's permission.
Feedback the moment you hang up
Both tools grade. Kendo AI lets teams tune scorecards to their methodology and applies them to real recorded calls as well as roleplays. Lateral scores every roleplay on five dimensions the second you finish: discovery and qualification, objection handling, value articulation, rapport and active listening, and next steps and closing.
It's fixed and opinionated on purpose, the same five every time, so you can watch a number move across a week of reps instead of debating the rubric. And it stays with you, not in a manager's dashboard.
Practice and assessment, both private
Lateral has two modes. Practice mode lets you say "coach me" mid-call and get nudged in real time, scored only on the parts you handle yourself. Assessment mode turns coaching off and grades you strictly, the way the real call will.
Six personas, adjustable difficulty and mood, and scenarios from cold call to discovery, demo, negotiation, renewal, and champion building, all of it private to the rep. You can flub the open five times where no one can see before you nail it live.
Frequently asked
Is Lateral a Kendo AI competitor or a replacement?
- They overlap on AI roleplay but serve different buyers. Kendo AI is a team suite that pairs roleplay with automated call review and a management dashboard, bought per seat and run by sales leaders. Lateral is built for the individual rep, sign in with your work email and practice on your real pipeline, no admin setup. If you're a rep who just needs sharp call practice, Lateral can replace the need to wait on a team rollout; if you need real-call review and team analytics, Kendo AI is the broader fit.
Does Lateral review my real calls and build custom scorecards like Kendo AI?
- No. Lateral never touches a real call, every conversation is a roleplay against an AI buyer built from your product and pipeline, graded on five fixed dimensions. Kendo AI's automated call review and methodology-based scorecards are a team feature; if that's what you need, Kendo AI is the better fit.
Will my manager see my Lateral roleplays?
- No. Lateral is direct-to-rep with no manager dashboard and no rollup. Your reps are yours. That's a core difference from a team suite like Kendo AI, where visibility into rep performance and call review is the point.
How fast can I start practicing with Lateral?
- Under two minutes. You sign in with your work email and Lateral builds a spoken roleplay from your real product and calendar, no custom prospects to configure and no per-seat plan to buy first.
What languages does Lateral support?
- 33 languages, including full [Spanish roleplay](/sales-roleplay/spanish). You can practice the same call in the language you actually sell in.