Will AI be the end of business coaches?

As of February 2023, ChatGPT has been used by more than 100 million people, making it the fastest-growing online service in the history of the internet. 

Disrupting the strategy and leadership landscape 

While traditional business coaches are limited by their experiences, ChatGPT's knowledge is almost endless. Fed with the right datapoints and context, it has the potential to disrupt and expedite the leadership of a business.

There are now potentially hundreds of use cases. From defining audience personas, analysing customer data and generating insights to developing customer behaviour profiles. The traditional long-hand process of creating these business artefacts can now be far more efficient. Generative AI offers leadership teams access to insights not bound by the limitations of individuals or a single advisor.

A recent example of this was a project for one of our clients in the financial services sector. We used AI to help the CEO identify strategic priorities and trial an AI survey focused on core business areas across leadership and culture, customer centricity, technology enablement, skills and team effectiveness. We input the responses into ChatGPT to advise on themes before generating a SWOT analysis and prioritising eight strategic priorities with detailed implementation steps.

The tool's recommendations were impressive from minimal inputs and identified opportunities for change like:

• Introducing a framework for exploring and prioritising new disruptive business models
• Developing ideas to nurture a culture of continual improvement
• Methods for developing accountability and feedback in teams

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Will disruption lead to replacement?

All that said, is ChatGPT a direct substitute for strategic advisors? No, we're safe for a while yet. But this is a point of constant discussion. Our view is clear - ChatGPT is a brilliant assistant or sidekick. Used with human capability, it can help inspire new thinking and massively reduce time in finding solutions. However, the strategic direction still needs human interaction. Only we can ask the right questions of the tech and validate the answers it provides. 

It's well documented that Large Language Models like what powers ChatGPT are subject to 'hallucinations' – they can provide factually incorrect information but deliver it with great certainty. While prompt engineering practices exist to overcome this, we can't blindly follow all their commendations - the experts need to rubber stamp its outputs.

Board-level AI-driven innovation

While in the short term, ChatGPT will play a supporting role for many of us, longer term, the tech will disrupt at board level in companies of all sizes. It's already started with Japanese VC firm Deep Knowledge, which recently placed an AI robot on its board of directors. Named Vital, it was appointed for its market trends insights which are 'not immediately obvious to humans'.

And this is what we're planning for; experimenting with ChatGPT and innovating to make recommendations to our clients on its use now and in the future, from the shop floor to the boardroom.

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Has all this got you thinking about AI? We can help you understand what AI means for your business, where the most valuable opportunities lie and how to get started.

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