Apparently some AI coaching models can now pass coaching certifications, so what is the role of AI coaching in organisations and is in person coaching another profession about to hit the list of jobs soon to be taken over by AI? In truth we don’t yet know fully what the impact will be, but the clues are there if you look for them.
A balanced perspective
As someone who owns a coaching organisation, you might be expecting me to attack AI coaching, panic about the prospects for our industry or offer you a defiant rebuttal of why it will never replace us. I’ve seen many of these kinds of posts. I’m hoping to offer a more balanced perspective, to help organisations make good choices for coaching provision and coaches to focus on where they can really make a difference (spoiler alert – we are not doomed!).
AI coaching is an attractive proposition for organisations because it’s cost effective, scalable and can give their people all hours access to coaching support. The value of coaching, particularly in management and leadership roles is well documented and researched, the problem for many organisations is that they just don’t have the budget to do it at scale. In this respect AI may actually expand the market rather than take anything away.
AI coaching can also be strong at a defined set of skills, typically important for coaching. Generative AI models are already strong at pattern identification and tracking language, which is a skill a lot of human coaches struggle to do consistently. They can also be excellent at some of the fundamentals like goal setting, tracking progress and keeping people accountable. Arguably it can also be better than a human coach at providing objective insights and reducing bias.
Do your research
The advice from clients of ours who have explored AI coaching extensively is that there is definitely a place for it, particularly if you want to scale your coaching offering. Some products can also be excellent for scenario-based practice, like giving feedback or having a performance conversations, enabling managers to practice these skills in a safe way. This eliminates the need for dreaded role-play conversations which can only be a good thing! But their advice is to do your research, put your best people on doing due diligence and testing out providers and products. Don’t be scared of technical language, ask a lot of questions. There are a lot of new players in this market and the quality of offering varies immensely, but it’s easy to get lost amongst the technical language and everyone spurting the term ‘generative AI’ like it’s therefore obvious you should buy it.
AI in partnership
In our experience AI can also be an excellent partner for coaches, try putting your clients personality type or other analysis into a model like Gemini or Chat GPT and ask it to give you recommendations for development and the list is pretty impressive. It’s a great way to check your own bias or preference for certain interventions. In organisations, asking it to analyse your 360 feedback into themes and development areas could be more productive (not to mention less painful) that trying to make sense of it yourself.
Our argument is that AI can free up human coaches to work on the deep transformational work and bring in nuance and context. Whilst hints, tips and advice could typically fall into the remit of an AI powered coach, true behavioural change requires trust and the human connection that an AI cannot provide. Human coaches can role model open, healthy communication and connection in a way that machines cannot and should not be able to do. Only a human coach can help someone work through their emotional regulation, beyond hints and tips, and tune into the subtleties of body language and emotional expression. They can also help bring in context and strategy or creativity, helping clients work through complex situations. There’s plenty of room for both, I believe, and we are looking forward to working alongside AI products to help our clients get even better results in our future work.
