Would you let a chatbot coach you?

We've allowed artificial intelligence into our lives almost without even realising it. Alexa (or one of her competitors) will tell us what the weather will be like tomorrow from a barely distinct command. Netflix's algorithms suggest what we might like to watch based on viewing habits. Health apps are crunching data and drawing conclusions about our wellbeing as we go about our business. The CIPD's April 2019 report, People and Machines: From Hype to Reality, found that – despite the technology being in its relative infancy – 32 per cent of UK organisations had already invested in AI and automation, with 22 per cent introducing software to perform cognitive tasks. Many HR departments are already using text-based chatbots of the kind deployed by banks or retailers to handle customer service queries by mimicking natural conversations.