Page - 52 - in Coaching im digitalen Wandel

Strong / Terblanche52 The reality is that there are already over 500,000 chatbots (Harris & Endsor, 2018) available to us, offering customer service, learning support, travel advice, companionship and even therapy. Some of these already play a role in the coaching space, but are they any good? In this article we will take a closer look at what it would take to build a chatbot coach (as an example of an AI coach), the ethical and moral considerations and where some current technologies are having an impact in the workplace today. Possible shapes of an AI coach Theoretically, an AI coach could appear in a number of forms, from a text-based conversational chatbot avatar that greets you in a virtual world to the physical presence of an »autonomous« virtual human (humanoid). For the purposes of this article we will focus on smartphone and web-based chatbots. A chatbot can be defined as a »computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet« (Oxford Dictionary, 2019). Bart Kamphorst helpfully clarifies coaching by a chatbot as an e-coaching system: »An e-coaching system is a set of computerized components that constitutes an artificial entity that can observe, reason about, learn from and predict a user’s behaviors, in context and over time, and that engages proactively in an ongoing collaborative conver- sation with the user in order to aid planning and promote effective goal striving through the use of persuasive techniques« (Kamphorst, 2017). Whichever form it takes, it seems reasonable to expect that an AI coach would ultimately have to comply with existing definitions and required competencies of human coaches. Building on the premise of a human being present for another human, let us agree on a definition of humans coaching humans for the context of this article: »Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.« (ICF, 2019a) And as a skills guide, let us keep in mind what is expected of a human coach by referring to the eleven coach competencies set out by the International Coach- ing Federation (ICF) (cf. ICF, 2019b). A. Setting the Foundation 1. Meeting Ethical Guidelines and Professional Standards 2. Establishing the Coaching Agreement Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 4.0