The Rise of AI Coaches in 2024: A Game Changer for Agencies

Do you ever wish you could provide personalized expert support to every single client 247 without being chained to your computer or to a phone or on a zoom call? This thought is something that I've grappled with over the past year. Imagine if you could provide advice at scale. What if subject matter experts could support a hundred or even a thousand times more people without spreading themselves too thinly? Well, advances in artificial intelligence are making this a reality through virtual mentors and coaches. AI coaches showcase the art of what's possible when combining human intelligence with the expertise of machine learning. They allow seasoned professionals like you and me to train customized coaches using decades of content, data and experience. In turn, these AI coaches can provide tailored coaching and guidance. 24 Now I've been developing my own AI coach focused exclusively on supporting agency owners just like you to grow your agency in a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable way. Now, I've had a few false starts, but now we're on a robust platform and we're actually beta testing my coach called Ask Rob Anything, which is trained on my entire body of work. Now I'll be sharing more about my journey of building Ask Rob Anything later in this episode, including all the mistakes I've made. So stick around around to learn more about the rise of AI coaches and how this emerging technology can transform your expertise, sharing and supporting your agency and for your clients. I'm Rob Da Costa and this is the Agency Accelerator Podcast. As someone who has stood in your shoes, having started, grown and sold my own agency, I know just how it feels in the ups and downs of agency life. So this podcast aims to ease your journey just a little bit by sharing mine and my guests experiences and advice as you navigate your way to growing a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable business. Okay, so that intro was quite a bold claim and of course we are seeing AI absolutely everywhere. And I don't really want to jump on the AI bandwagon too much today because I can't claim that I'm an expert any more than the fact that I use a lot of AI tools to support my running of my business. But but I have been really interested in developing an AI version of me, which I've called Ask Rob Anything. So let's kick this off by giving you a bit of a definition of what I mean by an AI coach because it's a term that you might not have really heard much yet, but trust me, you are going to hear a lot about it in the forthcoming year. So AI coaches are like virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence that provide customized coaching and advice by understanding the user's goals, needs, challenges and pains. Now they are trained on data and the expertise to provide personalized guidance and support 24,7 rather than just using the general web as their source of information and advice like ChatGPT and all those tools do. Now the really interesting thing about an AI coach is that they don't just answer your question, but a good tool is going to ask you questions and dig into the challenge that you've got to understand the context before it gives you an answer. Just like I would do if I were coaching you face to face, one to one. So that's what an AI coach is now. Over the past sort of year or so, obviously AI has been going at a crazy rate of development and rapid advances in capabilities in NLP are allowing for more natural language conversations to take place. And indeed an AI coach will be trained on your communication style as well. Just like Ask Rob anything is My goal of you using a tool with would be that you would get an answer in terms of content, but also in terms of style and delivery in exactly the same way as you would get an answer if you were talking to me. Now this deep learning in how AI coaches work means that they can interpret the user needs, ask questions and then provide the right advice in the right context. And of course, growth in computational power makes real time coaching interactions possible. And there's lots of exciting things coming down the line that I'll tell you about that I think are going to make it even more human our interactions. So I know this obviously is interest to me and maybe it's of interest to you because you might want to have your own personal coach, but let's look at some other use cases that might inspire you to think about how you could use an AI coach to actually support your clients. So first of all, we can use a coach to enhance our client service and support by automating lots of those commonly asked questions and making the answers available to our clients anytime, any place. 24, 7. Now if you have a community of some kind like I do, like I have my self running agency membership, then you can obviously provide expert guidance to your community members. Again 24, 7 and if you provide any kind of learning to your audience, then you can continue that support afterwards by delivering personalized learning, training and coaching at scale. Another really interesting use case is to capture all the knowledge that you have as the agency owner and then then make that knowledge available to your team whenever they need it. So now you've got a way of sharing your knowledge with everybody else without them always coming to you to seek advice and guidance, because then they'll be able to get it from your AI coach. And of course, an AI coach will be able to share tools, templates, advice and documents. And this is something that Ask Rob Anything does and kind of what makes it rather different to other sort of AI tools and more generic tools that are out there. So, talking of Ask Rob Anything, let me tell you a little bit about my story of building my own coach, Ask Rob Anything, as well as some of the trials and tribulations along the way. So I've been hard at work creating my own AI coach specifically for my agency community. And I'm calling him or it or her. I'm not quite sure what I should say, Ask Rob Anything because kind of it says what it does on the tin. I want you to be able to ask me anything anytime and get a decent answer. Now, Ask Rob Anything is trained exclusively on all of my content, all of my courses, all of my tools, all of my templates, all of my podcasts, all of my blogs. In fact, so far, I've uploaded over 1200 pieces of content and questions and answers. And the goal of this tool is to leverage my 30 plus years of agency experience and make it accessible to a much wider audience than I possibly can when it's just me directly sharing that advice. So in the background, the way this works is you upload your content, it translates those that content into kind of the typical question would be asked and then the answer, and then I can monitor what people are asking in the background, check whether I think the answer is a good answer, and I can edit the answer if not. And of course, if I see people asking questions that are not based on the content I've already uploaded, then I can upload content on that. What makes this really unique is it's not just answering questions, as I said earlier, it's coaching you. So it's digging into the challenge you have and, and then it's providing an answer, and where appropriate, it's sharing videos, it's sharing tools, it's sharing templates, and then it's showing you how to actually complete those templates. For example, now, I've had a bit of a false start with this because I'm a bit of a tech geek and I love playing with new tools. And last year a tool came along that promised to be able to do this, so I started developing that tool. But I like a lot, like a lot of things, I guess, in marketing, but specifically with AI There's a lot of hype at the moment and sometimes the platforms aren't quite living up to the hype. They're what they hope it will be in maybe a year's time, but it's not where it is today. And so that led me to a bit of a full stop where I had to switch platforms because the platform I was using really wasn't delivering good enough answers. It wasn't enabling me to kind of edit and train the AI tool in my style and to answer questions that I wanted in my way. So I had to switch platforms and kind of start again. But now I'm on a platform that is exciting. I've got direct access to the founders of this platform and I've seen the exciting roadmap that they have coming down the road. Now what I've learned about this is it's not about the quantity of content that you upload, but it's about the quality of training that you give the the tool. And like I say, I'm trying to train it to not only give you an answer, but give you an answer in exactly the same way I would, as if you were having a one to one coaching session with me. And so I think that the opportunity for these AI tools is really exciting, both for me helping people like you, but also for you helping your audience. Now when I started creating Ask Rob Anything, I had two use cases in mind but it actually turns out that there's a third one as well. So let me share with you those two use cases first of all. So first of all want to create Ask or if anything as a standalone tool, as a standalone coach that will enable you to access my knowledge at a very cost effective price. Think sort of like 20 pounds a month as opposed to a thousand pounds a month if you were working with a coach. One to one. So that's the first sort of use case and that's my plan. We haven't launched it yet, but that's my plan with the tool which will happen kind of in the spring of 24. The second thing that we are doing already is I want it to be a supplementary way for, for my self running agency members to access me 24 7. Now of course it doesn't replace me, but it does mean that I'm available to them 247 to ask any question, big or small. If they can't find something in the resource library, then they can ask Rob anything and he will share with them the content that they're looking for. So not only is it a great way of supporting them, but it's also a great way of searching the content in my program using AI. Now, the third slightly surprising benefit and use case of putting Ask Rob Anything into action is the fact that by putting all of my knowledge of 30 plus years, like I said, I've put over 1200 pieces of content into the system so far. The actual coach is helping me answer my clients questions quickly and obviously I can't remember everything to do with 1200 pieces of content. And to be honest, the types of questions that my audience are asking and the answers that Ask Rob Anything are giving are 90% of the way that I would answer the question anyway. So it's really saving me a lot of time. So someone asked me a question, now I put it into Ask Rob Anything, it gives me an answer, then I edit that answer and then I share the question out with the audience. Now obviously I want my audience to go straight to Ask Rob Anything and know that it's a trusted partner and it will give them accurate advice and it won't hallucinate like chatgpt and so on does, and it will share the correct links. I've obviously got to kind of build awareness and get people comfortable with that. And that leads me on to the next section of this podcast, which is all about adoption because this is the really challenging part to get people thinking about adopting and creating an uptake of using an AI coach. I know how powerful these tools are, but that doesn't mean people will adopt them right away and there's a whole lot of education that needs to happen. After all, if it's not clear why someone would pay for an AI coach rather than for example, using ChatGPT for free, then of course they're not going to do it. But of course as, as you will know from listening to this, the answer is in the quality of the content and the coaching approach rather than just answering and of course sharing of tools and templates as well. But we have to educate the market and I'm always really wary about being the person that educates the market because you need a lot of clout to do that. But of course it's not just me that's doing it. And I do believe that as this year progresses this, the idea of having an AI coach will become more and more mainstream and more accepted. And when I've spoken to some people that are more visionary than me about this, they believe that we'll all have coaches on our phones and in our computers, whether that be a health coach or a fitness coach, or a food coach, or a business coach, or a life coach. We're going to all have these AI versions that are supporting us in our whole lives. Now, on the other hand, I also know that as an agency owner, it can be really isolating and, and it can be really complex. Scaling a business on your own, there are so many moving parts to do with clients and hiring the right people and operations and growth and planning and everything else. And even when you've got partners, it's tough to find that expert guidance available all hours just to bounce ideas off. As I often hear, it can be lonely at the top. And of course, not everyone can afford their own expert business coach. And that's why I'm implementing an AI coach trained exclusively on the ins and outs of building a profitable agency. And I believe that it's going to be a game changer for all agency owners of all shapes and sizes. But as with any solution, you need to integrate using something like this into your regular routines. So if this sounds inspirational to you, and you are thinking about using a coach or you want your clients to, and trust me, you will at some point, here are a few tips. So if you're using your coach through a web browser, then make it your home page and start your day checking in with your AI coach, checking on priorities and the challenges ahead for the days, and then let their outside lens help strategize and prioritize with you. If you share your daily KPIs or your monthly KPIs with your coach, then it can give you recommendations on improving them. And of course, you then need to make sure you are implementing them because it's not going to sit there and make you do that. You can debrief with your coach on recent wins and losses and concerns to get constant better guidance and improve the way that you do things. Something that I think is coming down the line that's going to be really exciting is that your AI coach can almost nudge you to do things so you can enable notifications on it. And for example, if you were setting your goals for the week, it could check in with you on a Wednesday and say, how are you getting on with those goals? And then on Friday, you can debrief with your coach to talk about what worked and what didn't work and how you might improve that the following week. And I think once we get into the habit of using our coach, then pretty soon chatting with your AI agency mentor and coach will feel second nature providing you guidance advice at every step of the way. To accelerate your agency's smooth growth and not to feel like you are alone. But of course we need to form new habits and that means using your coach every day. Now, as I've said, I'm not suggesting that AI coaches will replace humans. And I think the ideal scenario in 2024 and beyond may well be a blend of AI and human coaching where you can afford it. But as I've said, not everyone can afford 1,000 plus pounds a month for a coach, but most people can afford to spend, say 20 pounds a month on an AI coach. And given my positive experiences so far of developing Ask Rob Anything, I can see more agencies creating their own customized AI assistants trained on their content and their data, not only for their CL but also for their teams. One thing that I've been able to do is get my vat, my remote workers who clearly don't have the knowledge of my business as I do, to use Ask Rob anything to help create social media posts and to help write emails because it's doing it in the style of Rob, which is fantastic. So that's a benefit you'll be able to have with your teams is like roll out a knowledge base that can share the intimate knowledge you have and give them access to that same knowledge. So it's all super exciting and I think there are unlimited potential for the idea of creating an AI coach. So let's just wrap this up by me sharing some thoughts around AI coaching. Now, first of all, there might be a better or a different term than using AI coaching. I'm not even sure having AI in the title helps very much because everything is AI, this, that and the other. Right? So anyway, there might be a different category that appears, but I'm using that term right now. I certainly believe that AI coaches have an exciting future ahead as they this technology continues to mature and develop. So here are a few ways that I see AI coaches evolving. So first of all, I think we're going to keep developing more personalized and contextual based advice. With advances in natural language processing, future AI coaches will become better at truly understanding the context and each individual's unique needs, goals, challenges and situations. This will allow the advice and guidance provided to be highly tailored and very specific. And this is what really excites me about Ask Rob Anything, because it doesn't just answer questions, it coaches you to dig into your challenge in more detail and then guide you with a very specific solution. And this is only going to get better. Now I think the second point is the fact that the AI idea of Coaching is going to expand across more industries. I think there are some pioneering industries that are starting to adopt AI coaching and I hope the marketing agency space is one of those. But over the next few years, as I said, we're going to see a proliferation of AI coaches across many more fields, from healthcare to finance, from education and so on. And I feel that I am at the beginning of this journey in the agency sector and we've got to get you guys comfortable with the idea of having an AI coach and most importantly, using it as part of your everyday workflow. So what are your thoughts on that? What do you feel about having an AI coach? I'd love to hear from you. So do drop me an email. I'll put my email address in the show notes, but it's just. Robertacostacoaching.co.uk I'd love to hear from you. Thirdly, I think AI is going to get integrated into everything. It's going to get integrated into wearables and biometrics. I think the potential for future AI coaches to move beyond just conversational interfaces and connect with wearable devices to factor individuals, real time health, emotional state, stress levels and more into recommendations is going to be really exciting. And you can just see how everything is going to sort of integrate together into this one big holistic solution. I think there's going to be coach to coach collaboration. As more AI coaches are developed and put into practice, I could see networks emerging allowing different AI coaches to collaborate and share insights on complex issues, drawing from their specific expertise. So that's going to be kind of really exciting and maybe a little bit scary as well. And then the last point is more journey based guidance. I think as AI gets better, it's going to move away from a simple one question, one answer and it's going to get much better at guiding you through multi step journeys and conversations, anticipating challenges and adapting guidance for the best outcome for you. So that again is really exciting. I think the next decade are going to reveal all sorts of advancements in how AI can mentor, teach and support at scale. But accessing specialized expertise and customized advice is already tangibly benefiting many people from today. The people I have in my beta group and also my membership who are using Ask Rob Anything are already giving me really great feedback as well as obviously feedback of features they'd like to see coming down the line. So while things are going to advance, guys, it is here today and that is really exciting, both from my perspective, but also from your perspective and our imagination kind of is the limiting factor of how we could use this to best help our customers. So as you can see, in conclusion, AI is already really revolutionizing how I run my business. I admit that I am a tech geek, so stuff like this really fascinates me. But as I said, I'm already getting great feedback from my community and my beta testers. Now when you think about this, I used to just do one to one coaching and when I did that face to face coaching, I could have maybe a maximum of 20 clients at any one time. Now I coach through my group coaching program, the self running agency and maybe I can reach 100 agencies that way. But just imagine how many people I can impact through Ask Rob Anything. 500? 1,000? 10,000. This is what's truly exciting and I'm excited to see where this technology goes next and find even more ways for me to embrace it, but also for you to embrace it. AI coaching platforms provide a way forward for seasoned professionals like myself and you to exponentially share our knowledge and better sell support our clients, our community and other people on their growth journeys. By training an AI assistant or an AI coach or mentor like Ask Rob Anything using all of my content, I can perpetuate my expertise to guide others 247 and it truly doesn't need me to be there. So no more me scrambling around and working hours to make sure I'm responding to everybody in a timely manner. And whilst Ask Rob Anything specializes in working with marketing agencies and marketing agency ownership and growth, imagine what's possible when agencies start to build their own AI coach to support their clients. The opportunity to receive highly personalized, niched advice on demand already seems like science fiction, but AI coaching is making it a reality. Well, I hope sharing my firsthand experience of creating Ask Rob Anything the Good, the Bad and the Ugly shows how attainable and practical it is to leverage AI and I hope it's inspiring you to think about how you can use it with your clients. Whether you are a one person agency or a 50 person agency. I think it is really exciting. Now if you want to be the first to hear about the developments of Ask Rob Anything and indeed be the first to hear when we go live, then make sure you've joined my wait list which can be found at dacostacoaching.co.uk askrobina anything wait list. So that's dacostacoaching.co dot UK askrobanything waitlist or one word. So anyway, hope you found today really useful. If you did, please make sure you have hit the subscribe button. Share the episode with your colleagues and I'd love you to leave a review because as you know, that helps me reach more people, makes the algorithm show the podcast to more people. But other than that, have a great rest of your week and I will see you next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast.