RANT: Why Bot Coaches Don't Work (And What Works Better)
Description
Five years ago, I wrote a check for $1 million to launch an AI-powered coach using IBM Watson.
We then created the world’s first executive coach bot (long before Chat GPT).
And it DID NOT work.
Here’s why:
Even though the leaders liked the tool…
The BUYERS—CPOs, CHROs, CLOs—DID NOT.
The issue was this: Occasionally the bot would make a mistake. And this put the Buyers at risk.
Sure, the mistakes were small, uncommon, and not costly. But, any risk when it came to a coach was too much risk.
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So here’s what we realized: People didn’t want a Bot coach. They wanted affordable, text-based access to a coach.
And here’s what we did to meet that need: We put together a staff of on-call, ICF-certified coaches to interact with leaders by text.
Like a call center of expert coaches.
Learners can message an expert at the exact moment they run into a challenge or a question.
That was the balance between scalability and impact that people wanted.
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