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When communications worker Suzanne Selkow decided to open her own consulting practice, she realized that going solo meant fewer opportunities to \u201cturn to a colleague for a gut check,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
Knowing herself to get bogged down in \u201cdecision paralysis,\u201d she figured she needed some kind of outside perspective as she launched her business. So she turned to a different kind of mentor\u2014she created an AI career coach using Anthropic’s Claude.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured that was actually a practical use case for an LLM\u2014to be able to take some of those bigger-picture ideas that I had workshopped with a human coach, and turn it into a week-by-week [business] plan,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now months into her solo career, Selkow, 36, says she still turns to her AI career coach for certain mentorship-style tasks, like direction for what tone to use with clients.<\/p>\n
More and more people seem to be relying on artificial intelligence as an effective career coach. Per\u00a02025 research<\/a>\u00a0from business-focused think tank The Conference Board, 96% of workers felt AI was able to give them \u201ccustomized\u201d coaching, while 91% who had used AI for career coaching said they would use it again. Senior employees, too, are noticing its prevalence across younger workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cJunior folks are using AI for career questions very often; I’d say every day,\u201d says Jasmine Singh, general counsel at the legal tech company Ironclad. \u201cWhether they would have turned to more senior folks for those questions or not . . . is the debatable part.\u201d<\/p>\n With so many job-focused worries around AI replacing humans, it\u2019s a bit startling to see the technology being used for mentorship\u2014a uniquely human activity that relies on interpersonal connection for professional growth. But even as more workers look to AI for professional advice, they insist the technology\u2019s role is supplemental to their interactions with human mentors. The AI, according to those who use it, simply helps to fill in gaps that humans wouldn\u2019t want to be bothered with, anyway.<\/p>\n Selkow\u2019s AI coach began with a straightforward but involved prompt.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are my business coach. I’m launching a strategic communications advisory business. Here’s my website, which has details on the services that I offer . . . the type of industries that I work in,\u201d she describes. \u201cI need a thought partner to ask questions to help me figure out how to build and scale this business. I need both practical and strategic advice. I’m starting at square one . . . I need you to be firm but supportive, and don’t shy away from telling the hard truths.\u201d<\/p>\n That last instruction was key for avoiding the signature sycophantic language expressed by large language models, as Selkow worries that empty congratulations could give her the wrong ideas by propping up unsound decisions. She also uses her self-tailored Claude career coach to ask about when and how it\u2019s appropriate to follow up with business leads, and has fed it some client call recordings to elicit feedback on how to improve those interactions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI found that the feedback echoed things I’ve heard before from coaches, mentors, and managers,\u201d she says, reiterating her own weak points.<\/p>\n Others use AI coaches to teach them how to do their jobs. <\/p>\n When Abby Hegland, 29, started her new role in December as an account executive at Yoodli, a company that offers AI-powered communication role-plays and has a chatbot of the same name, her colleagues were bogged down with end-of-year tasks and had little time to train her. \u201cI knew that I had to be independent and proactive when it came to . . . getting up to speed,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hegland closed herself in a phone room at the company\u2019s office and decided to use its own AI product to practice her job. She asked Yoodli things like, \u201cHow would you sell to this customer? How would you explain this product feature?\u201d Less than a week in, she says, she was taking customer calls, and even closed a deal.<\/p>\n Another example of junior associates using AI for mentorship that Singh has seen is for career development. \u201cI am currently in this role, doing this thing. I want to be in that role, doing that thing. What are the steps I follow to get from point A to point B?\u201d she\u2019ll see them ask AI. They\u2019ll ask about specific courses they should take to arrive at B, and what experiences they\u2019ll need under their belts. \u201cIt’s actually using it as a little bit of a mentor, plus an educational path,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Another Yoodli user, Curency Reed, a tenant representation broker at real estate firm Flinn Ferguson Cresa in Seattle, uses the AI to \u201cpractice before a big meeting\u201d or to \u201cwork through a tough scenario.\u201d While these are activities she could do with the help of a human mentor, she likes that the AI coach meets her where she\u2019s at, she says. \u201cNo scheduling, no awkwardness, no waiting for the right mentor to have an open calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n The not needing to wait for or bother superiors and colleagues is big for those seeking AI-generated mentorship. \u201cIt felt really good to not have to feel like a burden to some of my other sales colleagues who were trying to close out the year strong,\u201d Hegland says of when she started her job at Yoodli. It also meant that when she did go to those colleagues with questions, they were more strategic, because she\u2019d already done the background research. \u201cI had the opportunity to get some of my basic, entry-level questions out of the way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n It also helped her practice customer calls exhaustively\u2014an activity a living mentor will eventually tire of. Not AI. \u201cWhen I’ve done mock calls with managers, typically you just do one,\u201d Hegland says. “It\u2019ll last for 15 to 30 minutes, you get feedback, and then have to wait for the next day to implement it on another mock call.” With AI, Hegland says she was able to \u201cinstantaneously hit practice again and redo that demo,\u201d enacting the feedback she\u2019d received right away.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reed, 25, notes that an AI career coach can make up for where representation in mentorship is lacking in her field. \u201cFor someone building a career in commercial real estate, an industry with a very real generational and representation gap,\u201d she says, the \u201caccessible, honest coaching [provided by AI] matters.\u201d<\/p>\n In some fields, like law, there\u2019s a culture in which higher-ups expect junior employees to do their own research before coming to them with queries. In Singh\u2019s experience, junior associates using AI mentors are often \u201cpre-asking questions, so that when they go to their human mentors . . . they’re asking more tailored, specific questions\u201d\u2014kind of like doing a preemptive Google search on a topic, but more efficient.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people above you are incredibly senior, and their time is precious,\u201d Selkow says, \u201cespecially as you get more senior in your career\u201d and \u201cgiven how busy everyone is.\u201d Making the most of their time means answering lower-level questions on your own, perhaps with an AI career coach, so you can maximize your moments with flesh-and-blood mentors.\u00a0<\/p>\n While AI mentorship can ease awkwardness, save juniors workers time, and even help facilitate human mentorship, its glaring lack of humanity raises understandable red flags. <\/p>\n In Psychology Today<\/em>, for example, psychologist Priya Nalkur\u00a0writes<\/a>: \u201cWith AI . . . I am never made to feel uncomfortable.\u201d But discomfort is a huge part of work and human relations in general.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s a skill,\u201d Nalkur continues, \u201cwe are dangerously close to losing.\u201d<\/p>\n She insists that assets like \u201cemotional maturity\u201d are \u201chard-won\u201d through interpersonal experience, not by reading AI-generated feedback on a screen. \u201cThe emotional support and personal validation that mentors offer cannot be replicated by algorithms,\u201d echoes Andy Lopata, a professional relationships strategist, in a different\u00a0post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Singh agrees. By relying too much on an AI mentor, \u201cyou potentially undercut your ability long-term, not only to succeed in your profession because you have not had that skilled experience of asking for help and getting mentorship, but it makes it harder for you yourself to be a mentor,\u201d she says. \u201cAll my best mentors came from people who I reached out to proactively, sometimes nervously.\u201d<\/p>\n Plus, AI makes mistakes. Besides hallucinatory responses to fact-finding questions, the technology can \u201coversimplify situations,\u201d Selkow says, as well as ignore critical points in your back-and-forth. That\u2019s why many opt for AI career coaches as a supplement to human mentors, not a full-on replacement\u2014like Selkow, who has a breathing business coach and regularly talks out work scenarios with former colleagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHuman advice is sticky in a way I haven’t experienced with an LLM,\u201d she says. \u201cI can hear the person saying the thing to me, and it surfaces exactly when I need it.\u201d You can also trust that a person\u2019s advice is grounded in real experience, not an aggregation of suggestions online.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the human element just feels different. \u201cMy manager actually cares about my career,\u201d Hegland says. \u201cYoodli [the AI-powered chatbot] doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cYou are my business coach\u201d<\/h2>\n
No awkward moments with AI<\/h2>\n
AI doesn\u2019t care about your success<\/h2>\n