The Clash of the Titans: Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) remove coaching from the planet earth?

The advent of AI and Chat Assistants seems suddenly to be reaching tsunami proportions – and people (sorry, humans) are, from all reports, already losing jobs. Understandably, fear levels are rising, even in the coaching world. Some are saying AI will never be able to replace coaching because Chat Coaches will never have a heart, never be able to feel and all those essentially human things (well, so far, anyway!). Others say: “Who knows?” And that’s possibly at the centre of human fear: “Who does know?” Even the AI people, don’t know where AI is heading and are taking one swift step after another.

Looking at it from AI's perspective, they (isn’t it funny how we are already starting to humanize them!) are here to assist humans with writing, summarising and imaging, to name a few of the uses. One of the questions the creators are asking is, “how can we save humans time?” Consequently, we are all already seeing ways in which AI is commoditizing various services and products that humans provide. Just look at the various automation tools such as Zapier, and how they are including AI in this automation.

From the coaching perspective, wether we like it or not AI is already hear and many coaches have already exposed themselves to baby versions in the form of calendar tools like Doodle and Calendar.?Increasingly, coaching platforms like coaching.com and practice.so are coming into the market and introducing AI too.?So, for the "it will never replace human coaches"-brigade, it already has begun and much to our benefit and advantage too.

From our clients’ perspective, it's a case of value for money. There are some that will try to get coaching as cheap as possible and others who are prepared to pay more for the greater value they receive. There is also the avalanche brought about by coach aggregators like BetterUp and CoachHub who are making it their business to democratise coaching by making coaching increasingly available to everyone.

Yet, I sense that the answer to the question lies in a "horses for courses" type of solution. There will always be some clients for whom the relationship side in coaching is imperative, some for whom it is not, and then a whole lot in between.

So, what do we do with all this information? My conclusion, at this stage anyway, is that we need to find ways to make AI to work for us. After all, we help our clients reinvent themselves from time to time; why should we be exempt from doing so ourselves? Ultimately, the most important question we need to ask ourselves is: “What value do I bring to the coaching relationship?” And make sure we do so! That value lies, I believe, in how we ARE as coaches, the authenticity of HOW we coach. AI may be able contract with a client, set goals and agree actions and probably more – what I refer to as ‘what we DO as coaches’ – but, for the time being anyway, I am not sure it will replace who I AM as a coach. As THAT coach, I am willing to learn how to enable AI to supplement my role in a way that benefits my clients.

Are these questions you're beginning to ask yourself?

Are these questions you're beginning to ask yourself?

? Is it time to re-sharpen your coaching edge?

? What are your current coaching challenges?

? Do you have enough clients?

? Is it time to apply for your first or next accreditation? or

? Are you longing for a community of like-minded coaches that will help you become that extraordinary coach with an extraordinary practice?

If any of these resonate with you, please use this link to my diary to set up a FREE informal Exploratory Chat with me.

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