Artificial Intelligence as Workplace Coach?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly capable of solving problems, recognising patterns, and understanding and interacting with humans through analysing massive amounts of data. The applications of AI have gained momentum across many different industries such as education, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare. Another rapidly growing field of AI application is workplace coaching. Traditional workplace coaching usually requires at least two human individuals (a coach and a coachee) that meet either in person or online, requiring them to align schedules, energy, and an investment of financial resources for the coachee. Contrary to this, AI coaching tools can provide immediate, inexpensive access to people interested in a coaching session. An interesting question someone could ask now is: Do I actually need to engage a human coach, which requires much more of my time and energy when I can get instant, cheaper access to coaching through AI? It might be worth unpacking the current applications, effects and ethical considerations of AI coaching - what it can and can’t do.
The Applications and Effects of AI Coaching
The role of AI in workplace coaching is rather broad, but can be grouped into four main areas of application:
AI coaches to emulate human coaches – such AI coaches do function entirely autonomously, without being overseen by a human during the coaching process.
AI to support human coaches – such AI coach assistants are being used to automate repetitive tasks, help prepare and structure coaching sessions, and do follow-ups with clients.
AI coaches to help with skill development – such scenarios focus on using AI to train employees on coaching skills and help keep track of coaching skills development. This can be particularly useful for managers/leaders who might want to acquire specific coaching skills.
AI to analyse data – such an approach focuses on using AI as a data collection tool during human-only coaching sessions to detect trends or patterns during the coaching conversation.
We can see that the application of AI in workplace coaching appears very broad, from entirely autonomous AI coaches to data collection only.
AI coaching methodologies such as script, text or conversation-based approaches have been identified as useful and generally accepted by clients. However, managers, for example, report higher levels of satisfaction, insight, and trust when working with a human coach compared to an AI coach. AI coaches are also perceived to create a psychologically safe, non-judgmental environment for clients. Positive effects of AI coaching use were reported for some coaching outcomes such as goal attainment, reduced negative affect, and physical activity.
A very important caveat to such effect studies is that the majority have been conducted with student samples or over relatively short time periods, limiting the generalisability of such findings. Another limitation of intervention studies examining the role of AI coaching is that the coaching outcomes were relatively narrow and simplistic. To date, it remains unclear if AI coaches are capable of guiding through more complex goals that require careful consideration of social dynamics or ethical dilemmas.
AI Coaching through an Ethical Lens
While the use of AI coaching appears to deliver some promising outcomes for clients, a quite important question remains: Are there any ethical implications and concerns regarding the use of AI coaching? Yes, there are – many! Ethical concerns regarding the use of AI coaches are primarily focused on privacy, security, bias and harm. Questions are being raised regarding the application of ethical frameworks to guide how digital agents are being used and how AI biases can influence the course of interactions. Concerns are also being raised if AI can make ethical judgements or identify risks during the coaching process that may impose harm to clients or others and to have measures in place to act accordingly. More recent discussions focus on AI human-in-loop (AI-HIL) approaches where human and AI coaches complement each other. In such hybrid AI-HIL frameworks, AI is considered to support performance tracking and feedback generation, whereas humans remain responsible for ethical decision-making and judgement, critical interpretation, as well as social engagement with the client.
Quo Vadis AI Coaching?
While AI coaching appears promising in specific areas, human coaches possess unique features such as ethical judgement, cultural sensitivity, adaptability, and are able to create a deep personal connection with their coachees – all essential qualities that are crucial during the coaching process. Nevertheless, AI workplace coaching appears to have large-scale potential if we understand how to use and develop it responsibly. Especially in the organisational development and learning space, it can help redefine people development and might have the potential to leverage organisational performance.
References:
Ebner, K., Hofer, A., Soucek, R., & Spurk, D. (2026). Putting AI into career coaching: The effectiveness of a career coaching intervention conducted by a chatbot. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 168(June), 104264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2026.104264
Passmore, J., Olafsson, B., & Tee, D. (2025). A systematic literature review of artificial intelligence (AI) in coaching: insights for future research and product development. Journal of Work-Applied Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-11-2024-0164
Passmore, J., Tee, D. R., & Rutschmann, R. (2026). ‘Getting better all the time’: using professional human coach competencies to evaluate the quality of AI coaching agent performance. Coaching, 19(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2025.2510643
Saxena, M. P. K., & Ganuthula, V. R. R. (2026). Artificial intelligence and human-in-loop: a complementary approach to workplace coaching. Development and Learning in Organizations, 40(2), 31–33. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-07-2025-0268
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