Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Accelerator, the podcast designed to help marketing agency owners just like you drive growth faster, smarter, and with cutting-edge insights. I'm Rob Da Costa. And over the last few episodes, I've been discussing AI and particularly how AI is impacting coaching, mentoring, and training. And today, I want to talk a little bit about the future and why AI coaches might actually be better than human coaches. Now before you get too skeptical, let me clarify. Human coaches are incredible at what they do. That's what I've been doing for the last 18 years, especially when it comes to empathy, emotional intelligence, and those subtle cues that make personal connections so powerful. But AI, well, it's quickly catching up.

And when it comes to certain areas, AI might surpass human coaches in ways that we hadn't even imagined a few years ago. So today, we're gonna explore why AI coaches have the advantage when it comes to being unbiased and consistent. We're gonna talk about how AI can remember every single interaction, making it almost like having a super coach that's never tired, stressed, or emotionally triggered. And we'll talk about the future. What will happen when AI starts picking up on emotional cues? What does that mean for coaching as a whole? And I also want to answer some of the common questions that you might have and indeed ones that I'm being asked every single day. So this episode is gonna be a deep dive into where we are today, how AI is revolutionising coaching, and what the future holds for both AI and human coaches. So let's get started.

Alright. Let's jump into the first big question of the day, which is why would anyone consider an AI coach over a human one? Look, it's a bold idea, I know. But let's break down some of the key advantages that AI coaching brings to the table. And one of the biggest advantages is that AI doesn't have bias, at least not the kind of unconscious bias that humans bring to conversations. Look. We all have them, even the best human coaches.

We might subconsciously judge people on someone's appearance, on their background, or even their tone of voice. AI, on the other hand, is programmed to treat every client equally. It doesn't care about your gender, your race, or where you went to school. For example, imagine you're talking to a coach about a goal that maybe is outside of the norm, like wanting to break into a completely new industry. A human coach without realizing it might have a subconscious reaction to how realistic or unrealistic they think that goal is based on their own experiences. AI, well, it has no preconceived notions. It just works on facts and helps guide you based on data, not judgment. The next thing I want to talk about is the fact that AI has no emotional baggage.

And this is a big one because AI doesn't get tired, frustrated, or it doesn't have a bad day. When you meet a human coach, they're still human. Right? So they've got emotions. They've got stresses. Maybe they've had a rough week. Maybe they didn't sleep well. All of that can influence how they interact with you. But AI, well, it's always on.

It shows up to every session fresh and focused with zero emotional baggage. It won't accidentally get triggered by something you say, and it won't bring personal experiences into the session unless it's been programmed to share relevant insights. Let's say you're having a session where you bring up a tough personal topic. With a human coach, it's possible that they might have their own emotional reaction to that, especially if they've had similar experiences. With an AI, you get a neutral, consistent response every time. It's designed to keep you on track without getting sidetracked by emotions, yours or its own. Let's talk about another area where AI really excels, and that is memory. An AI coach remembers everything.

Every single piece of knowledge it's trained on, every conversation, every goal that you've set, every progress update, it's all stored. Unlike a human coach who might take notes like I do and then rely on their memory, AI can instantly recall any detail from any session that you've ever had, and it does this without missing a beat. Think about it. You've had dozens of sessions over the last 6 months, and you're working on refining a specific goal. Well, AI can pull up all those previous conversations in an instant and remind you exactly where you left off and things that you said before. Human coaches, as good as they are, can't always remember every single detail. Now on top of that, AI has access to a complete knowledge base that is consistently growing and being refined. It can integrate the latest research and techniques into your session instantly.

Whether you're working on improving your productivity skills, setting business goals, or even managing stress, AI can pull from a wealth of resources to guide you with precision. This constant access to up-to-date knowledge is something human coaches just can't compete with on their own. Another area where AI shines is that it doesn't just have to stick to one coaching model. It can adapt and apply the most effective model based on your situation every time. So whether that's the GROW model for goal setting or cognitive behavioural therapy techniques for managing thought patterns or any number of other approaches, AI has them all at its disposal and uses them with precision. For example, imagine that you are working on setting your new business strategy for the year. The AI might start with the grow model to help you define your goals, outline the current reality, explore options, and then figure out your way forward. But let's say later in the session, you're struggling with some negative thought patterns and imposter syndrome that so many of us do suffer from and it's holding you back.

Well, then the AI can seamlessly switch to more of a CBT approach to help you identify and challenge those negative thoughts. Now human coaches are trained in a variety of models, of course, as well, but there's always the chance that they might gravitate towards the one that they're most comfortable with, the one that they most recently used, or the one that aligns to their own preferences. Now, of course, AI doesn't have that limitation. It chooses the best model for you based on your need in that specific moment. Now one final advantage that AI has over humans is its consistency. You don't have to worry about an AI coach being off one day or bring us a subjective view to your progress. It's always objective, always evaluating your progress based on data, and always ready to apply the most effective strategies without personal bias. So to sum it up, AI coaching offers some very clear benefits.

It's free from bias and emotional baggage. It has perfect memory and access to a massive knowledge base, and it uses the best coaching models available every time with objectivity and consistency. But before we get too carried away with AI, let's talk about where human coaches still have the edge. Because while AI is incredible at being consistent and objective, there are still some areas where human coaches excel in ways that AI just can't, well, at least not yet. So human coaches still have the upper hand in areas that are uniquely human, areas that involve deep emotional intelligence, intuition, and context. These are the things that, for now at least, AI can't quite replicate. One of the most powerful strengths of a human coach is the ability to pick up on subtle emotional cues. As humans, we communicate so much beyond just words through our body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and even the pauses that we take during conversations.

For example, imagine a client is describing a business challenge, and they seem a little unsure. Maybe they're sitting back in a chair or fidgeting with their hands. Well, a human coach can notice these subtle signals and gently dig deeper asking, hey. I noticed that you hesitated. What's on your mind? That ability to read between the lines, to sense what's not being said is a huge part of what makes human coaches so effective. Now AI is getting better at voice recognition and even emotional tone analysis, but it still struggles with the complexities of human emotions. Humans, on the other hand, can interpret these cues instinctively and use them to guide the conversation in ways that builds trust and uncover hidden insights. Another strength of human coaches is their ability to draw from rich personal experience.

Human coaches don't just have textbook knowledge. They've lived through the challenges. They've made mistakes, and they've overcome obstacles. When they share these experiences with clients, it adds a layer of authenticity and connection that AI just can't replicate right now. For instance, let's say a client is struggling with burnout. A human coach who's experienced some of those same feelings like I certainly have can share their personal story, how they got through it, what worked, and what didn't. That's not just advice. It's relatable advice coming from someone who's been in the trenches themselves.

AI is knowledgeable as it is but doesn't have that lived experience, although, of course, you can train it with that lived experience. It can provide data-driven insights for sure, but there's something about hearing a personal story from someone who's walked in a similar path that resonates on a different level. It creates a deeper, more emotional connection. And, actually, I'm training my coach, AskRobAnything, in some of those negative stories as well so that it can start to show some elements of empathy. Speaking of emotional connection, this is another area where human coaches truly excel. The relationship between the coach and the client often goes beyond professional transactions. It's a bond built on trust, empathy, and shared experiences. Think about it.

When you're talking to a human coach, there's an emotional warmth there. They're actively listening. They're invested in your success, and you can feel that. Over time, a strong coach client relationship can become a safe space for clients to be vulnerable, to really open up about their fears and their doubts. This emotional connection often becomes the foundation for deeper personal growth. AI, while incredibly intelligent, doesn't have the same capacity for empathy, at least not in the way that humans do. AI can offer supportive language, but it can't truly feel what you're feeling or react with genuine compassion. Now let's talk about something else human coaches are great at, understanding context and providing nuanced guidance.

Human coaches are able to take a holistic view of a client's life, understanding their personal history, their culture, their relationships, and their environment, and give advice that's tailored to that unique context. Let's say a client is navigating a family business and is dealing with a lot of personal dynamics. A human coach might pick up on unspoken cultural or familial expectations that could be influencing the client's decisions. They might address their approach, offering advice that's sensitive to these nuances. AI, on the other hand, might provide a more generic solution because right now, human coaches bring that deeper understanding of a broader context into every session. Having said all of this about the advantages of human coaching, I can't emphasize how fast AI is moving. And it won't be long before it starts to bridge the gap in all of these areas as well. Now, a good example of this is that I watched on Sunday a Netflix, a new Netflix series with Bill Gates at the helm.

And the first episode was talking about AI. And this has only just been released, but maybe it was recorded 6 to 9 months ago. And when he was talking about the future of AI, he talked about how he can see that AI will be able to see in the not too distant future. Well, you know what, guys? AI can already see. Yep. If you're having a video conversation with my coach, Ask Rob, anything, it can actually see you. So it can look at a whiteboard if you're working on some brainstorming, give you feedback. And if you don't believe me, give it a try and ask it what you're wearing, and it will tell you.

It's really, really impressive and perhaps a little bit scary as well. Okay. So we've covered the strengths of both human and AI coaches, but let's take a moment to look ahead and explore the future of AI coaching. Because whilst AI might have its limitations today, things are evolving fast, as I just said, and the gap between human and AI coaches is getting smaller by the day. So what could the future of AI coaching look like? Let's dive into some key developments that are just around the corner and what they mean for both coaches and for clients. One of the areas where AI is rapidly advancing is in the realm of emotional intelligence. Today, AI can analyse voice tones and facial expressions, but it's still basic compared to humans' natural ability to read emotions. However, researchers are making massive breakthroughs in emotion AI, also known as effective computing, which allows machines to recognize and respond to human emotions in real-time.

Imagine an AI coach that not only listens to your words, but also can detect subtle shifts in your mood, whether through voice inflection, word choice, or slight changes in facial expression if you're on video or body language. This AI can then adapt its coaching style accordingly, offering encouragement when you're feeling unsure or pushing you a little bit harder when you need motivation. In the near future, AI could very well have the capability to read emotions with the same accuracy as human coaches, possibly even better in some situations. Why? Because it will be able to analyse countless data points simultaneously, voice words, facial cues, body language, and it responds in ways that are precisely tailored to your emotional state. And if this seems all really far-fetched, then just bear in mind, as I just said, that you can have a video call with Ask Rob Anything and it can already see you, and honestly, that is true. So adding additional layers of reading body language and tone, etcetera, isn't very far away. Now as we discussed earlier, one of the major benefits of AI is its ability to remember every single interaction. But what's coming next is even more powerful.

AI that learns and improves over time based on your unique patterns and preferences. This is called reinforcement learning where the AI adapts its behaviour and recommendations based on past interactions. So let's say you've been working with an AI coach for 6 months. During that time, it's been learning about what motivates you, what your challenges are, how you respond to different coaching models, and even how you prefer to communicate. Over time, this AI becomes more and more personalized, offering insights and guidance that are uniquely tailored to you. This AI isn't just offering generic advice. It's shaping itself to be the perfect coach for your specific needs. It's like having a coach that evolves with you.

And because it's AI, it can scale this personalized learning to millions of people at once. The more you interact with it, the better it gets at understanding and guiding you. This is one of the key reasons why you need to share your email address when starting a conversation with Ask Rob Anything so it knows who you're talking to and it can dig into those previous conversations and learnings about you. Right now, as we've been saying, human coaches have the upper hand when it comes to offering advice that's nuanced and contextually aware. But here's the thing, AI is getting better at this too. In the future, AI coaches will be able to integrate not just your coaching history, but also external data that could influence your situation. Imagine an AI coach that has access to real-time market data, your industry trends, or even local cultural norms. It could tailor its advice based on these external factors, which the trainer of the coach has control over, giving you advice that's not just personalized but also highly contextual.

For example, if you're an entrepreneur in a fast-changing market, your AI coach could analyse trends in real time and help you make strategic decisions based on the latest data. Or if you're a leader managing a remote workforce, your AI coach could give you advice on best practices for leading virtual teams, taking into account both the macro environment and your specific team dynamics. Now one of the things that I am most excited about with AI coaching is its potential to democratize access to high-quality coaching. Traditionally, executive and business coaching has been reserved for those who can afford it. And as I said in a previous episode, less than 50% of agency owners have a coach. But AI can change that. It's scalable, affordable, and it's available 247. Shortly, coaching won't just be for the elite.

With AI, anyone from entry level employees to agency leaders could have access to a personal coach who helps them navigate challenges, sets goals, keeps them accountable, and accelerates their growth. This has the potential to fundamentally reshape industries and careers, levelling the playing field and giving more people the opportunity to unlock their full potential. Imagine the impact this could have on employee performance, entrepreneurship, or even personal development. By making coaching more accessible, AI could help millions of people reach goals they previously thought were out of their reach. This is why I am so excited about Ask Rob Anything and why I'm really going all in on this idea of AI coaching. Now, of course, with great power comes great responsibility, and the future of AI coaching isn't without its challenges. As AI continues to evolve, there will be some important ethical questions to address. How do we ensure that AI remains unbiased? How do we handle the vast amounts of personal data being collected by AI coaches? And how do we ensure that AI's advice remains aligned with human values? These are questions that need to be carefully considered as we move forward.

But one thing's for sure, the future of AI in coaching will bring both incredible opportunities and important challenges, and it's not going away. It's up to us as an industry to guide this technology in a way that enhances human potential whilst keeping ethical considerations front and centre. Alright. Before we wrap up today's episode, I want to take some time to address some of the common questions and concerns people have when it comes to AI coaching. As with any new technology, there are bound to be some hesitations, and it's important to acknowledge those and offer clarity. So let's dive into some of the most frequent questions I get asked about AI coaching. So one of the questions I get asked quite a lot is, is AI coaching really personal? Doesn't it feel just a little bit robotic? And this is a valid concern, especially if your experience with AI has been through chatbots or voice assistants that feel cold or transactional or just asking questions to chat GBT. But AI coaching is different.

Modern AI coaching platforms such as Ask Rob are designed to be highly interactive, adaptive, and with multi-turn conversations. As AI continues to evolve, it's becoming better at personalising interactions based on your unique preferences, communication style, and even your emotional state. Now the next big question, probably the one that you've been thinking about a lot as you listen to this, is how secure is my data with an AI coach? Data security is obviously one of the most important considerations when it comes to AI. Coaching conversations are personal, often involving sensitive information about your goals, challenges, and personal development. So it's critical that the AI platforms adhere to strict security protocols. Most reputable AI coaching platforms use encrypted data storage and comply with major privacy regulations like GDPR or HIPAA to ensure that your information is safe. The data is often anonymized and used solely to improve your personal coaching experience, not shared with third parties without your consent. Unlike, for example, Chat UBT where your conversations are used to train their models and the answers become available to all, AI coaches like Ask Rob Anything do not share your data, and it's stored securely as previously mentioned.

Another question I get asked is can AI coaches be biased? And this is a big one, and it's an important conversation in the AI world. AI itself doesn't have emotions or inherent bias, but it can reflect the biases in the data it's trained on. So if an AI system is trained on biased data, it obviously can end up perpetuating those biases in its advice or interactions. However, the AI community is aware of this, and developers are actively working to minimize bias through more diverse training data, transparent algorithms, and regular audits. If done correctly, AI coaching can be significantly less biased than human coaches who might have unconscious biases they aren't even aware of. And I think another question is really, will the AI make up answers if it doesn't know the answer? Because, you know, we've all used tools like ChatGPT where it's come back with an answer that's blatantly wrong or bad information. They call it hallucinating where it's trying to fill in the gaps. Well, my AI coaching platform, Master Rob Anything, doesn't do that.

It has a number of guardrails to make sure that it isn't making up answers, but it's only giving you answers from the knowledge base that it's trained on. So the next question is, how do I know if AI coaching is right for me? I think this is a great question because a lot of people don't really get AI coaching at the moment, which is why I'm doing a lot of podcasts on the topic because they still see, like, interacting with AI as almost like a conversation with ChatGPT, like an advanced search engine, where, of course, coaching is multi tone conversations where it digs into things. And let's face it, it isn't necessarily for everybody. If you're someone who thrives on emotional connection, real time feedback, and deeper conversations that involve complex emotions, you might find the human coaching model more beneficial at least in the more emotionally charged aspects of your growth and, of course, if you've got the budget. On the other hand, if you appreciate consistency, immediacy, data driven insights, and the ability to track your progress with precision, AI coaching could be perfect for you. And, of course, it's a fraction of the price of, human coaching. My best advice is to try it and see. And right now, you can start using AskRobAnything for free, so you've got absolutely nothing to lose.

So those are some of the most common questions I get asked when it comes to AI coaching. Now if I missed one of your burning questions, please just reach out and drop me an email because I'd love to hear from you. It's clear that whilst AI coaching brings tons of advantages to the table, obviously, it's not without its concerns. And as I say, the market's still fairly new. People are still kinda getting their head around this. But with the rapid advancements we're seeing, many of those challenges are already being addressed. Alright. We've covered an awful lot today, and this podcast episode has become longer than I thought it would be.

So let's bring everything together and wrap up. We started by exploring the exciting advantages of AI coaching, its consistency, memory, objectivity, and how it uses the best coaching models every time. These strengths make AI an incredible tool for tracking progress, offering real time feedback, and providing personalized insights. Then we talked about the unique strengths of human coaches, especially in areas where empathy, intuition, and emotional intelligence come into play. Humans excel at the moment are picking up these subtle emotional cues, building genuine relationships, and offering nuanced contextual advice based on lived experience. These are things that for now set human coaches apart and create deep transformative connections with their clients. But looking ahead, we also talked about the future of AI coaching. AI is rapidly evolving or soon be able to replicate many of those emotional and intuitive aspects we've discussed With advancements in emotional intelligence, personalised learning, and context-aware insights, AI coaching will continue to close the gap, making it an even more powerful tool and an accessible tool in the coaching world.

I think the key takeaway from today's conversation isn't about choosing between AI and human coaching. It's about how the 2 can work together now to create the best possible experience for clients. And it's also about what you can afford. So for example, AskRobAnything is only $19.99 a month, where my private coaching sessions are over a £1,000 a month. As we move into the future, it's essential to stay open to the possibilities. AI is here, and it's going to be a big part of the coaching and the agency landscape moving forward. So the more we understand and embrace its potential, the more we can leverage it to accelerate growth for ourselves and for our clients. So if you're curious about how to get started with AI coaching and how it can support your agency, now is the time to explore.

Still early, and those who get ahead now will have a significant advantage as the technology matures. Okay. So I wanna thank you for sticking with me today and to tuning into this episode of the agency accelerator. AI in coaching is a fascinating topic, and it's one that's gonna keep evolving, and it's one that I'm all in on. Whether you're excited about the possibilities or maybe you still got questions and concerns, I encourage you to continue the conversation. AI isn't here to replace human insight. It's here to enhance it. And remember, if you're interested in seeing AI coaching in action, don't forget to check out ask Rob anything, my very own AI digital coaching platform that's designed to help you accelerate your business and your personal growth.

And as I said, you can try it out for free and experience firsthand how AI can support your journey. Just check the link in the notes below to get access to it. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you've hit the subscribe button. Do consider leaving a review and share it with anyone who you might think will find it valuable. Till next time, keep pushing the boundaries, keep exploring, and keep accelerating your agency's growth. Thanks so much for listening.