Kirsten Moorefield, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder at Cloverleaf, Sarika Lamont, CPO at Vidyard, and Sarah Royer, Sr. Manager of People Ops at Nirvana Insurance, joined us on The Modern People Leader for a live discussion on AI coaching. We talked about what AI coaching actually means today, building these tools in-house versus buying, and why career growth will never be a perfect checklist.---- Sponsor Links:🔗 Learn more about Intuit QuickBooks Payroll at QuickBooks.com/workforceMPL Links:🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.---- (08:53) What AI Coaching Actually Means Today(10:47) The AI Coaching Definition Problem & Human Coach Misconceptions(12:01) Why AI Cannot Replace Human Relationships at Work(13:54) AI as an Enabler for Better Manager Conversations(15:05) Teaching Employees to Own Their Career Growth(16:18) Building AI Tools for Managers, Coaching & Performance Conversations(18:08) Connecting HR Systems, Context & Employee Data Together(20:02) Sarah’s Approach to Building AI Coaching Skills in Claude(22:01) Buying vs. Building AI Coaching Tools Internally(24:05) Kinfolk, AI Employees & Workflow Automation at Vidyard(27:00) Claude Skills, AI Coaching Gems & Legal Guardrails(29:47) Why HR Teams Should Start Small & Experiment Fast(31:00) What Makes an AI Coaching Tool Actually Valuable(32:14) Why Daily Coaching & Relationship Context Matter Most(34:11) The Importance of Personalized Coaching in the Flow of Work(36:01) Cloverleaf’s MCP Approach & Integrating Behavioral Data(37:12) Why Managers Struggle With Coaching Conversations(38:04) HR’s AI Adoption Problem & Fear of Falling Behind(40:07) Sarika’s Approach to AI Change Management at Vidyard(42:02) Making AI Adoption Fun, Human & Transparent(44:04) Focus Fridai, AI Enablement & Experimentation Culture(45:12) Why AI Skills Are Becoming Mandatory for Employees(46:09) Sarah on Creating Space for HR Teams to Build With AI(47:53) HR Professionals as Builders & Full-Stack Problem Solvers(48:49) AI Ethics, Compliance Risks & Responsible AI Coaching(50:28) Balancing AI Pressure From CEOs While Protecting Employees(51:15) Q&A: How Employees Are Actually Using AI Coaches(52:43) Career Growth, Self-Ownership & the Limits of AI Guidance(55:09) Why Career Growth Will Never Be a Checklist---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn---- Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.