The future of Coaching & AI
It’s just over a year since OpenAI released ChatGPT and brought AI into the mainstream conversation. To be clear, AI has been part of the technology vernacular for decades. ChatGPT changed the story and made it mainstream. Below is the 5 year history of the search term ‘AI’ in the United States.
See what I mean?
To be clear, what happened this year was the introduction of Generative AI to the mass market. Now, for the first time, anyone can ‘talk to the machine’. A pandora’s box has been opened and we’re never going back.
As the year wraps up, I wanted to put some thoughts down on the convergence of Generative AI and Coaching. I’ve never been more excited about the future of technology and how it can come together to help people. In my case, most of my free thought is around how we can help people at The Breakaway and our vision has always been to become ‘the coach in your pocket’. The breakout of Generative AI this year has made that dream a nearer term reality. So let’s dig into 3 key points about how AI and Coaching are coming together.
Point 1. AI will not replace [most] coaches
AI is eating jobs. This headline drives a ton of clicks. It’s not really true…yet.
High quality coaches, who go deep in their craft, get to know their clients, and are there to help in a variety of ways, aren’t going away. AI is in it’s infancy and it will be able to do things we can’t currently fathom, but there are times you want a human touch, and that’s what a coach is for.
Well, that’s what a good coach is for. Good coaches are already using AI to make their clients better, and to alleviate some of the manual/repetitive work. This will only make them better at their craft and allow them to spend more time leaning in to their clients.
There are coaches who have enjoyed ‘phoning it in’ for a long time. They deliver templated workouts without personalization. They’ll answer a call when needed but mostly they run on autopilot. These coaches will either be invigorated by AI and learn how to use this new tool in their practice or they will hold on to the way things have been done, and over time their business will be threatened. To be clear, this is not unique to coaching. In almost every industry, we will watch areas that have long been repetitive get taken over by people using AI to bring new life and efficiency to their business sector. Like many shifts, it will happen slowly, then all at once.
The good coaches should be excited about how AI can make them better.
Point 2. AI will enable anyone to have a coach.
I’m passionate about this one because it’s the mission of The Breakaway. We are already seeing simple AI for tasks and agent-like processes pop up. I believe the future will have each of us with a handful of ‘agents or apps’ that help us in our day to day lives.
If you’re into Wine, you’ll have an AI app for it that will know from a GPS signal when you walk into a restaurant, have access to that restaurant’s online wine list and already have 5 suggestions for you, based on your likes and dislikes, before you even sit down. This might even have happened when you made the reservation, as your Wine Agent will have access to your Travel Agent.
If fitness is a passion, you’ll have a coach in your pocket. I hope it’s The Breakaway! What will this feel like? You’ll get a text message in the morning (unless you prefer email, which your Coach will know) with that day’s updated workout plan. Your Coach will have access to your calendar, your training partners calendars and eventually your nutrition app and more. Perhaps midday your Coach will get a signal that your resting heart rate is elevated and might ask you via text ‘Do you want to adjust the plan today?’. This conversation will feel natural and be multimodal, meeting you where you are. Each day you’ll be coached to the right workout based on your goals, progress and biofeedback from that day. Wake up with a low HRV (which is a sign of the body not being ready to push) then Coach will adjust your workout.
We already do this at The Breakaway. This past summer one of our customers with a coach asked our Coach a question at 5 in the morning and got his training question answered immediately. He would have had to wait until 9 am to call his coach for a response. Your AI Coach never sleeps, is never on vacation, and will know everything about you.
Point 3. Generative AI can enable humanlike coaching at scale.
In 20 years in Silicon Valley I’ve never seen things move as fast as they are moving right now. What took years in the adoption of the iPhone/mobile platforms happened in a few months this past summer. And we’re just getting started. To put it in perspective, we just started the first inning…
The unlock provided by Generative AI will make the conversational part of a coach scalable. There’s no data that can truly answer the question of “how do you feel after that workout?” which is the critical part of a coach understanding how to adjust the plan. Composite scores (readiness, etc) can be wrong as much as they’re right.
What evolves next, will be the conversational Coach in your pocket. This isn’t a chat-bot, but an AI enabled UX that knows when to ask for input, and when not to. This coach is multi-modal, never sleeps and is constantly assessing your activities throughout the day, week, month to help guide you towards your goals.
As we like to say with any training and coaching plan: It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
In a follow up to this, I’ll go over the 6 C’s of Coaching (Content, Customization, Cadence, Communication, Compassion and Container )and where and how AI fits in.
How do you think AI can best impact the coaching ecosystem?
