Yannick’s Coaching Lab features guest coaches from a broad variety of approaches, who showcase how they work as part of a live 45min coaching session, followed by reflections and Q&A with the audience.
Curious to know what this session was like? Have a peek at the Lab Report below or consider VIP membership to access the full recording of this and many more exciting sessions.
Yannick’s Coaching Lab #63 — Yannick Jacob & Virtual Sapiens
Lab Report by Natalie Fraser
PART 1
Pre-Session Summary
This session explored how AI might be able to help coaches practice their coaching skills on a ‘Virtual Sapien’ rather than a human being. The plan of the session was for Yannick to role-play with the platform: Yannick in the role of coach, and the Virtual Sapien in the role of client. Ironically, despite having worked during his test run 20 minutes ahead of the session, when it came to the live event the Virtual Sapien platform would not function on Yannick’s device. Perhaps this in itself is an important reflection and consideration of working with technology.
The session plan adapted, and participants were invited to individually sign into the Virtual Sapien platform and engage in a role-play coaching session with the AI technology. They were able to choose the type of session (e,g, discovery call, normal session), character of client (e.g. overwhelmed), scenario (e.g. imposter syndrome, career change), as well as giving some background about their coaching style/approach.
After 20 minutes, the group returned together for a discussion, and this is what they found…
Session Summary
Initial comments
“that was really cool”
“that was mind-boggling”
“that was pretty crazy”
“that was really interesting”
Report
A key function of this platform is also that following the session, the AI provides a ‘report’ giving a percentage of the qualities being tested for and feedback based on specific markers, qualities, tone, mannerisms, outfit, questions. Mixed feelings were expressed about the reports: about the trustworthiness of its assessment and how the constructive criticism felt to receive.
A good score does not necessarily mean good coaching
Another reflection was the common desire to ‘beat’ your score, running the risk of coaches focusing on working out how to beat their score (i.e. sit up straight, change tone) rather than developing the genuine quality of their coaching.
Adapting to coach’s development focus
Different AI-client characteristics and scenarios were chosen by each lab participant who reported that the experience was realistic. It provoked genuine emotional responses within them, and mirrored genuine professional challenges. The Virtual Sapien was especially useful for practicing engaging with a scenario that in real life tends to feel uncomfortable (e.g. conflict, pricing, sales pitches).
Sophisticated Prompting While there are other ways to engage with AI to support coaching training, this platform was recognized as especially sophisticated.
Authenticity The quality of the question versus the quality of the client-coach relationship was a conversation that arose in relation to considering what AI can offer versus what humans can offer.
Outsourcing The use of having an AI assistant to delegate less-preferential and potentially less humanly-intense aspects of coaching was considered a possibility. For example, accountability sessions.
Introducing AI to clients may in itself be received with discomfort, yet this may likely be a generational factor – with next generations being far more comfortable having their lives interwoven with technology.
Key Insights
Overall feedback was fascinated, shocked, and impressed by the platform. A sense that AI is a fairly guaranteed part of the future was determined.
Critiques included:
Moving between tabs completely kicked people out of the system so they needed to log in and restart.
The reports were a little demoralizing for some.
The service did not work on all devices, including some laptops and phones.
The recording does not seem to record the AI voice.