Thrive (Ariana Huffington) and OpenAI (Sam Altman) are launching a new company, Thrive AI Health in order to achieve better health outcomes and address health inequities head-on – a mission we’re no strangers to here at YourCoach. This goal is admirable. We all want to expand access to better health & wellbeing support across the globe and the public is finally starting to recognize that health coaching is an essential component of making that possible. What we have an issue with, is the understanding of REAL health coaching and its full potential.
REAL health coaching generates REAL outcomes. While AI has many benefits, AI health coaching lacks the human connection that’s so deeply critical to the success of this very approach and it’s principles, like motivational interviewing, empathy, accountability, experience-based insights and rapport that have been scientifically proven to increase positive outcomes (see our 20+ Deep Dives) in addition to drawing on data and biometric insights. In today’s blog, we will challenge the hype with the latest discourse around health coaching and AI and share our experience-based truths, backed by science.
Yes, personalized support is key – but it needs to be personal.
Personalized health and care is nothing new within the world of health coaching. Health coaching is founded on the principle that in order to enact behavior change that lasts, you need to create programs that are directly tailored to an individual’s goals, values, needs, and lifestyle. To get clients where they want to be, you need to first meet them where they are – and health coaches are experts in this practice. In the last several years, we’ve seen many attempts at personalized, humanized health coaching programs through AI, but have not seen any success, as they all fell short of their big promises.
AI, alone, cannot replace a human health coach in the foreseeable future. Real health coaching is science-backed and equally as important, relationship-based. Real health coaching generates outcomes that move the needle and last. AI has great potential to supplement coaches. Push notifications can certainly improve medication adherence or remind us about daily activity. Tracking biometric data can help health & care teams (inclusive of health coaches) engage with patients at those pivotal points for positive behavior change that lasts. But nothing can replace regular and ongoing, one-on-one dialogues with a real health coach, as REAL coaching (and yes, we are stressing the word ‘real’ here) is so much more. These conversations enable health coaches to dig deeper through open-ended questions with empathy and understanding to get at the heart of an individual’s goals and ongoing challenges. Together, they co-create action plans that are reasonable, actionable and achievable and most importantly evolve with them through the course of life’s ebbs and flows.
Nudges and recommendations are great, but they aren’t health coaching.
While nudges and algorithm-backed recommendations are incredibly helpful and a great first step towards enacting health change, they’re simply not enough to catalyze the same results as a live health coach. Sessions with real health coaches inherently generate a strong sense of accountability, which is shown to be a key component to successfully achieving health and wellbeing goals. This same principle is difficult to achieve with AI-alone, because let’s face this hard truth together – so many of us find it difficult to hold ourselves accountable. We all know WHAT to do, it’s the HOW that we get stuck at. And at the end of the day an AI health coach is, well, just our own data blinking back at us. A real health coach meets you at each session with expectations, questions, and empathy. They’re ready to explore the good, the bad and the ugly, they’re ready to pick you up and to pivot when necessary. This is what personalized health coaching looks like.
At YourCoach, we’re reframing the conversation around AI and health coaching. Let’s stop trying to oversimplify something as impossibly complex as holistic health and wellbeing. Some solutions are meant to be worked on, not solved. We can’t write a code or a program to give everyone the support they need all at once as, most health and wellbeing focus areas are lifelong works in progress. What we can do (and are very good at!) is match them with a health coach who, with the help of AI tools, can co-create behavior change programs that will work for them and grow with them and evolve once they’re ready to build on that change towards their next goal. We need to move beyond the buzz words. Real health coaching is not AI health coaching. Real health coaching is dedicated, personalized and individualized live support from a trained expert and it works. It really, really does.
In our fast-paced world, we are always looking for the quick-fix to whatever challenges we are facing. There is no quick-fix. A health coach is more than a go-to expert on any given topic (that’s actually something we can use AI for :)). A health coach is your guide and mentor on that journey to your ultimate best self. The best self that performs at peak and the one that feels really, really good about themselves. And that takes hard work. A lot of work from both you and your health coach – but we promise, the results are so well worth it!
If you’re ready to learn more about how to partner with us to deliver real health coaching to your organization, send us a note to team@yourcoach.health.