Design and Implementation of A Web-Based Ai Coach & Counselor: A Dual-Mode Support System For High School Students

We present a web-based AI Coach & Counselor designed for high school stu-dents, featuring two dialogue modes that support (1) coaching-oriented goal set-ting and action planning and (2) counseling-oriented emotional support. The sys-tem was developed to be lightweight for school use while maintaining operational logging and basic safety considerations, including discouraging the entry of per-sonally identifiable information and recommending human support for high-risk situations. We report a pilot deployment evaluated with real-world interaction logs and a post-use questionnaire. The system recorded 47 sessions (310 mes-sages; 155 user and 155 assistant turns) during the deployment period, with coaching interactions being predominant at the message level (coach: 228; coun-selor: 68). A questionnaire administered to 51 students indicated generally posi-tive usability perceptions on a 6-point scale (e.g., clarity and ease of use above 4.7/6 on average), while continued-use intentions were comparatively lower (be-low 4.0/6). Students expressed a preference for using the system in collaboration with humans and valued safety mechanisms that enable escalation to human sup-port when needed. Free-text feedback highlighted detailed responses and multiple suggestions as strengths, and requested improvements in response speed, tone control, and perceived accuracy. We discuss implications for designing school-ready AI support tools that balance usability, trust, and safe human-AI collabora-tion.