How AI Can Augment Your Career Coaching Relationship

Recent advancements in generative AI have led to a proliferation of tools that can do everything from suggesting names for your side hustle to showing what your house would look like after redecorating. There’s also a new crop of tools that will help you advance in your job—or land your next one. 

A 2023 survey from The Conference Board found that 56% of employees are already using generative AI on the job, with nearly 1 in 10 using it on a daily basis. Work tasks and productivity aren’t the only thing generative AI can help with. If you have an existing career coaching relationship, new tools can act as your pocket coach’s assistant, helping you prepare to ace an interview, public speaking engagement, or crucial conversation at work. 

AI can support your relationship with your career coach, but no technology is a replacement for the nuance you get when interacting with a real person. Here are our tips on AI’s strengths—and limitations. 

Use AI for objective, statistical feedback in your coaching session.

Technology is good for observing what is, and reflecting back what it observes. If you’re preparing for a big presentation, you’ll probably set up a career coaching session to practice. In that session, the coach can use an AI tool in the video call to give you live statistics on your body language, speech, pacing, and amount of time you spend talking. For example, the AI tool can count your “ums” and “likes” so your coach can focus on giving more nuanced feedback. 

“Your coach can even use AI as a diagnostic tool before the coaching engagement begins, to figure out where you stand and what your most pressing needs are,” says Varun Puli, CEO and Co-Founder at Yoodli, an AI-powered speech coaching tool. 

Use AI like you would the bathroom mirror.

AI speech coaching isn’t just for your coaching sessions. Your coach will likely assign “homework” with the AI tool so you can practice as much as you want at home, in a private environment. 

This is a great option if you find real-time feedback popping up on your screen distracting in a live conversation with another person. You can work with the AI coach on your own time and it will give feedback based on your communication goals like your own personal producer. Then, you can watch yourself back before giving it another shot. 

Remember any use of AI is voluntary.

For the overthinkers out there who don’t want constant, real-time feedback on everything they say and do on a work call, you can choose to turn off the tool when you’re at work and switch it on only with your career coach and when you’re practicing solo. Or, if you thrive off the feedback and can stay focused on the main point of what you’re saying with a “producer” in the corner of your screen, leave it turned on all the time.

You should choose a tool you trust, where you don’t have any confidentiality concerns, and where you can customize data storage and wipe all of your data at any time.

Remember AI doesn’t replace human subjectivity.

AI alone isn’t a solution for something as nuanced as communication skills. “An AI speech coach is designed for individuals to use alongside human coaches to create custom learning goals and reports that quantify progress over time," Puli says. 

While you want a certain amount of objective feedback, subjectivity is also valuable—and can only come from a human coach. The technology doesn’t necessarily account for cross-cultural differences, multilingualism, neurodiversity, and other uniquely human traits. But just as the AI can help you get better at communication over time, the AI gets better over time by listening and responding to its users.