Hook
Should your organisation buy AI coaching or human coaching?It's the question HR and L&D directors ask me most often at the moment. Usually just after procurement has seen the price of an AI licence.My answer surprises some of them: it's not either/or.Over the past year, our team at Henley has published a series of papers on what makes human coaching distinctive: lived experience, career experience, values and humour. The pattern is consistent.(1) AI offers great transactional, goal-focused conversations, at a cost few human coaches can match.
(2) AI is good at structure: sharpening a goal, generating options, nudges between sessions.
(3) Humans are stronger where the work is personal: identity, values, a career transition, a leader under pressure.So the useful question for a buyer is not 'Which is better?'. It's 'Which conversations in our programme need a human?'A simple test I suggest:
→ If the outcome is a skill or a habit, AI coaching may well be enough.
→ If the outcome involves identity, values or a high-stakes decision, budget for a human.
→ If you can't say which outcome you're buying, pause the purchase until you can.In our view, the best programmes will use both, and be honest about which is which.If you buy coaching for your organisation, which conversations would you never hand to AI?
