There’s a lot of clamoring over AI and how it could or should be used as part of the mix of a coaching relationship. My crystal ball is as rubbish as the next guy’s, so I won’t attempt prophecy around whatever capabilities that technology will ultimately reach.
Instead, I offer the following observation:
AI is either good enough for your client, or it isn’t.
“John, that basically rhymes with the literal dictionary example of tautology: either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.”
Indeed. But consider both paths to see this is not an idle statement.
If AI is good enough for your client, it’s a year or two out before they realize they can have a sufficiently good coaching conversation with ChatGPT for literally pennies, if they don’t know it already. In this case they will not be your client.
If that’s not what they’re interested in, as in they want (and value) a more human touch in the coaching they receive, then don’t cheapen the service you offer by presenting them with non-human touches1Using AI to better how you yourself show up is another matter..
I recently had a coach who would give great conversations, and then give me AI-generated summaries afterwards. While they captured the broad strokes (and thus passed for a decent summary), if you actually recalled the whole of the conversation you’d realize there were glaring problems: wholesale omissions, misplaced emphasis, muddling who said what, semi-accurate quotes masquerading as accurate ones, and a lack of nuance and conveyance of what really mattered.
The most insidious part is that, if you didn’t take your own high-fidelity notes (mentally or otherwise), to read these summaries you’d never know the difference. Written as if recalled through the hazy soft filter of a dream-like state, you’ll just read it thinking it must have been a far less powerful conversation than it was.
What a waste.
You may be thinking this is a temporary problem as AI is still in a relatively nascent state. It’s true: AI is going to get better, and these issues of quality will almost certainly evaporate. The cheapening of your service with AI still holds. No matter how good AI gets, you are still in the Caring-as-a-Service business. Any pretense of caring is waylaid by giving your clients a verbatim copy-and-paste of what a machine spit out based on a transcript or recording of coaching calls.
AI might be great for the minutes of a meeting that nobody really wanted to be at anyway. Don’t let it cheapen what was likely a profound conversation worth remembering.
Notes:
- 1Using AI to better how you yourself show up is another matter.