This isn’t at all to say that executive coaching is without its many merits. There are many accomplished executive coaches out there providing tremendous value to their clients, revealing new ways of thinking and solving problems, as well as inspiring business breakthroughs.

Even so, a recent book got me thinking: if human coaches can do all that, what value might an AI executive coach provide? The question came to me while reading Geoff Wood’s The AI?Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions.

All along, the author makes the important case that business owners and CEOs must continually see themselves as the thought leader, with AI in a secondary, supportive role. Or as Woods puts it: “AI doesn’t replace what makes you human; it enhances it, helping you turn data into actionable decisions that drive your business forward.”

Benefitting From Thoughtful Data-Driven Decisions

One key takeaway that stands out from Woods’ material is the utility to be found in using AI to interview yourself. It sounds so simple and basic until you realize this is exactly what so many executive coaches already do. They serve in a Socratic Dialogue capacity, querying you until you come to the most beneficial conclusions on your own.

Or as the Institute of Coaching so aptly puts it: “Coaches are masterful at selecting questions—curious, mind-opening, provocative questions. Questions that expand horizons, deepen awareness, and spawn insights. Coaches make every question count, avoiding vague or general questions like: ‘How are things since I last saw you?’ and instead asking ‘what unfolded with the actions you decided on?’”

The value of this approach is that it serves as a kind of sounding board or mirror, uncovering insights and takeaways you might struggle to realize on your own. Working with the right sagacious coach, you can benefit from powerful one-on-one sessions that enable you to reflect on past decisions and plan for future challenges and opportunities.

The Value Of An AI Executive Coach

Again, the utility of such brainstorming with another human is evident. It sure beats the by-the-numbers busy work my coach threw at me. But in the AI Age, we needn’t rely on the cognitive faculties of a mere single individual, regardless of their experience or expertise. Instead, we can summon the processing prowess of artificial intelligence trained on a vast, accumulated store of knowledge

Just how vast?

UMA Technology breaks it down this way: “When it comes to the precise volume of data used in training ChatGPT-4, OpenAI has not disclosed specific figures related to the dataset size. However, it is widely understood that the dataset consists of hundreds of gigabytes to potentially terabytes of text.” The referenced article goes on to explain that while the previous ChatGPT version was trained on approximately 45 terabytes of text data from various sources, we can expect the latest model to encompass this startling amount, if not more. Such datasets include but aren’t limited to the various domains of science, literature, social media, news articles, and beyond.

To put this situation in its proper context, ask yourself: how much more powerful would it be to rely on an AI possessing this much information as one’s thought partner over even the savviest, most experienced executive coach?

What AI Cannot Replace

The more I read The AI?Driven Leader the more concerned I grew about the future of executive coaches due to stunning technology advances. David Reimer, a contributor to SHRM, recently raised similar concerns, beginning with a primer on the size of this vocational category: “First, the executive coaching ‘industry’ is atomized and vast. Globally, there are somewhere between 71,0001 and 5,500,0002 executive coaches delivering services.”

Though Reimer understandably struggles to quantify the true number of professionals occupying this space, we can be certain it’s not insignificant. For all those executive coaches out there now competing against AI with its staggering knowledge base to draw from, a natural question arises: what sets you apart from artificial intelligence?

To answer this, I had the privilege of speaking to Chris King, the self-proclaimed executive “witch doctor” and founder of Status Flow, an advisory firm specializing in achieving goals like improved overall organizational performance, staff engagement/retention, and team cohesion. King and I coauthored the book Renegotiate Your Existence: Unlock Your Impossible Life in 2021 so I was curious for his take on this matter.

“The cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers executive coaches won’t last,” he told me in no uncertain terms. “Why would any successful business leader bother paying someone who is simply going to ask templated questions or give you a bunch of exercises and assignments anyone could download online? Like all things AI-related, the future belongs to executive coaches who provide something proprietary, something special to them and their practice that no AI can replicate.”

King’s assessment makes perfect sense. It also dovetails with a recent Forbes article I wrote on the decline of gaming SEO to skew search results. The future, I argued, belongs to those individuals and companies that can provide uniquely human value. In that context I was referring to offering one-of-a-kind content that is helpful in its own right. If King is correct, the same idea will apply to executive coaching. Tomorrow’s winners in this space will have their own idiosyncratic system and protocol that no AI can sufficiently duplicate.

The Human Component

Of course, there are those out there who will argue future business leaders don’t want to work with AIs. Instead, they will crave the presence of people, especially the camaraderie and inspiring feelings that come from talking to another flesh and blood human being.

This may very well be true.

Anecdotally, I have heard from lawyers who express a similar sentiment as to why tomorrow’s clients will prefer a human attorney over an AI, even if the latter can recite any case law with eye-popping accuracy. However, we must be careful we do not confuse reality with wishful thinking. The fact is, AI isn’t just well-versed in terabytes of data. It’s capable of inhabiting various roles in a company when serving in an advisory role.

To understand what this means in practice, a CEO could prompt ChatGPT or any other AI to act as its CFO, its investor, its board member, even a customer. Feeding it context to understand a vexing issue or concern, the CEO could engage in a hypothetical back-and-forth exchange with the shapeshifting AI to both unearth both blind spots and helpful epiphanies.

For now, it remains to be seen just how AI will affect coaching, not just the executive variety, but even life coaching. As always, when it comes to the threat of automation, the wisest advice any coach—human or otherwise—can offer in these uncertain times is quite simple: be of value. Be irreplaceable.

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