I am writing this month’s blog without the use of AI – shock horror! I have not written any of my blogs using AI before as I like to put my own thoughts in writing. I have instead been experimenting with gaining content for other uses and I have been exploring a few tools offered by associate coaching companies. It’s a growing trend for our profession to use AI tools, whether we like it or not. Over the last month, I have been made even more aware of why we as coaches need to pause and think before using any of the tools on offer.
Whilst studying the growth of AI tools in coaching, I have also attended several sessions to wrap my head around the topic before I felt I could pass on anything to other Coaching Solopreneurs and I am so glad I have done this. Did you know that, at the end of the year, new EU laws come into place? These will need the attention of all coaches. Did you also know that if you don’t have an AI policy in place for any usage of AI and you don’t comply with basic standards of use you can lose your insurance cover. Lose our safety and license to operate – no thank you!
If like me, you are thinking “but I don’t use AI for my coaching“, then please think again. What if your client has asked you simply to record your coaching session using Zoom and gain a transcript? Maybe you have been asked to use the AI companion for them to access an action plan post session. This has been more common in my work with clients this year and I now realize that my contracts don’t cover our agreement and protecting the conversation that may even be data collection for an AI bot. I have been alerted now and will certainly work on protecting us in my privacy policy and confidentiality statements.
So, what do we all need to do next? First, it is important to find out in which touch points of your work AI is already present. Then also think about future proofing your business in exploring if you might want AI to be in the business for any step of your coaching process or business processes. Being realistic about this audit can help you look at the AI standards for coaching that have been developed and review the ICF and other coaching accreditation bodies’ guidelines. A great way to start is to look at the work of the AICAS (aicoachingalliance.com) and the standards that have been drawn up to make us look harder at what needs to be in place in advance of the law change. Credit to Jazz Rasool and his work in sharing these. Having explored the body of work, we should wrestle with our competency levels of how we use AI and what we may need to learn in order to comply with future laws.
The Operations part of my Coaching Business is under review and I hope this encourages you to do the same. Let’s get talking about this more in the next few weeks and get ahead. Kate
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