4.2 The future of career coaching
When exploring the views of different commentators on the future of career coaching in particular, there are some interesting themes emerging. One of these is the possible impact of artificial intelligence (AI).
Box 1 The use of AI in career goal setting
For their research, Terblanche et al. (2022) divided 327 undergraduate students into four groups – those who would see a human coach once per month for six months and those who had access to an AI chatbot coach, 24/7, as many times as they wished over the same period. There were two control groups who received no coaching support. At the beginning of the process, participants were asked to specify two goals that they wanted to work on over the phase of the project, and progress was measured at eight time points through an online survey.
In both studies, human and AI coaches were found to be significantly more effective in helping clients reach their goals compared to the control groups who worked without support. More surprisingly, results showed no significant difference between the success of the human coaches compared with the AI chatbot.
The authors suggest that in the case of goal setting, the ‘rigour and mechanistic execution of goal theory by the AI coach and its inability to deviate from a set process […] compensated for its lack of human intelligence’ (Terblanche et al., 2022).
While one interpretation could be that the role of human coaches will eventually become defunct – it is perhaps more likely that the opposite will be the case. You’ve learned throughout this course that empathy and the ability to build rapport are crucial to effective mentoring and coaching, and these very human abilities are currently beyond the scope of AI. Many individuals will continue to prefer human contact over ‘mechanistic execution’, particularly as they will often need support in identifying appropriate goals to pursue. In this study, the AI only became involved once the goal had been specified.
One very positive point is that this could increase the scalability and availability of coaching in countries and across demographics where coaching is currently inaccessible, often due to cost. The authors suggest that ‘If AI can help democratize coaching, more first-time users of coaching services would be exposed to the benefits of coaching’ and that, given the clear limitations of an AI coach, this could in fact create more opportunities for human coaches.
They close with a recommendation that human coaches should ‘evaluate their coaching maturity and invest the necessary resources to improve their coaching knowledge and skills to ensure that they offer their clients a valuable and relevant service’ (Terblanche et al., 2022). This could support the profession’s desire to introduce regulation into the industry, reducing the number of unqualified and inexperienced coaches who have no desire to learn and develop and are operating at the same level as an AI chatbot.
As the world of work continues to change, with an increase in remote working and the growth in AI technologies, new roles will continue to emerge – some of which may be of interest to career coaches themselves, such as:
- Future of work coach (Verd, 2023) – plays a pivotal role in guiding individuals and organisations through this transformative period in the workplace, ensuring that humans harness AI to their advantage, adapt to change, and thrive in a dynamic work environment. Verd explains, ‘It is about igniting human potential in the age of disruption and equipping people with the skills, mindset, and strategies necessary to thrive in an ever-evolving work landscape’.
- Learning ambassador (Merrill, 2019) – helps clients and employees to proactively identify skill gaps in a changing workplace, then helps them to choose the right learning experience to acquire and apply new skills that close those gaps.
While there are clearly lots of exciting possibilities for the future of career coaching, there are some fundamental aspects that need to make progress too. Career coach and academic Dr Julia Yates has this to say about her hopes for what might come next:
