Comparing artificial intelligence and human coaching goal attainment efficacy.

The history of artificial intelligence (AI) is filled with hype and inflated expectations. Notwithstanding, AI is finding its way into numerous aspects of humanity including the fast-growing helping profession of coaching. Coaching has been shown to be efficacious in a variety of human development facets. The application of AI in a narrow, specific area of coaching has also been shown to work. What remains uncertain, is how the two compare. In this paper we compare two equivalent longitudinal randomised control trial studies that measured the increase in clients' goal attainment as a result of having received coaching over a 10-month period. The first study involved human coaches and the replication study used an AI chatbot coach. In both studies, human coaches and the AI coach were significantly more effective in helping clients reach their goals compared to the two control groups. Surprisingly however, the AI coach was as effective as human coaches at the end of the trials. We interpret this result using AI and goal theory and present three significant implications: AI coaching could be scaled to democratize coaching; AI coaching could grow the demand for human coaching; and AI could replace human coaches who use simplistic, model-based coaching approaches. At present, AI's lack of empathy and emotional intelligence make human coaches irreplicable. However, understanding the efficacy of AI coaching relative to human coaching may promote the focused use of AI, to the significant benefit of society.

Coaching during a crisis: Organizational coaches' praxis adaptation during the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The chaotic initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic severely challenged organizations. Economies shut down and millions of people were confined to their homes. Human resource practitioners turned to organizational coaching, a trusted human resource development intervention for help, however, to remain relevant during the crisis coaches had to adapt their praxis. The working alliance describes the mutual bond, goal, and task alignment between coach and client and is an indication of coaching efficacy. This study investigates to what extent organizational coaches' praxis adaptation at the start of the pandemic maintained a working alliance that still served the human resource development (HRD) paradigms of learning, performance, and meaningful work. Interviews with 26 organizational coaches from USA, UK, Australia, and South Africa recorded during the first general lockdown (April 2020) were inductively analyzed using thematic analysis and deductively interpreted through the working alliance theory and desired HRD outcome paradigms. Findings reveal seven organizational coaching praxis adaptations judged to support all three working alliance components, with "task" and "goal" more prominent than "bond," suggesting a pragmatist preference reminiscent of crisis management. Praxis adaptation also seems to promote all three HRD paradigms of learning, performance, and meaningful work on individual and/or organizational levels. This study strengthens the already well-established link between HRD and coaching by positing that coaching is a dynamic, pragmatic, self-adaptive intervention that supports HRD during a crisis. Understanding coaches' praxis adaptation during the volatile initial stages of a crisis is important for HRD theory and practice given HRDs increasing reliance on coaching.