Is it possible for an AI to take on the role of a mentor?
This is the core belief of a startup named Practica. Originating as a marketplace for one-on-one executive coaching, Practica has now unveiled an AI platform that leverages a comprehensive knowledge base, accumulated through extensive interactions with a broad array of human coaches. This AI-powered chatbot delivers a bespoke mentoring and coaching experience, aiming to enhance professional competencies across various domains such as management, strategy, sales, personal development, and more.
Established in January 2020 by Dave Whittemore, ex-head of Product at Thinkful (now part of Chegg), and Andy Scheff, former engineering manager at Dropbox, Practica initially addressed career-long upskilling challenges through a conventional executive coaching marketplace.
Whittemore describes their journey into executive coaching: “Andy and I delved deeply into it…I mentored product managers while Andy focused on engineers,” he recounts.
The platform expanded later that year, incorporating a diverse array of executive coaches. Presently, it boasts 250 human coaches with specialized domain knowledge. Interestingly, 90% of its business caters to B2B clientele, offering services to employers. This segment of the business has also achieved operational profitability.
Nevertheless, the founders recognized cost as a significant barrier to accessing their services. Whittemore elaborates, “The average hourly rate was $200, varying with the coach’s and coachee’s seniority. Annually, a person undergoing a full year of coaching incurs an average expense of $3,000.” This realization steered them towards AI-based coaching.
The vision was to amalgamate their one-on-one coaching insights with AI advancements. Over time, they had deciphered the success drivers of coaching relationships, informing their construction of an AI system around a Large Language Model (LLM). Their knowledge repository comprises an array of publicly accessible educational resources, meticulously curated to encompass hundreds of skill sets across various topics.
Addressing concerns regarding websites blocking AI web crawlers, Practica clarifies its intent to direct users to original content sources, thus driving traffic to content creators and publishers it references, instead of merely providing answers.
While formal licensing agreements with educational content providers are pending, the company’s AI models are designed to be vendor-neutral, focusing on the application layer. This positions Practica not as a competitor but as a potential collaborator with entities like OpenAI or Google.
To guide its professional users, Practica employs a method known as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), pinpointing optimal learning resources for specific scenarios. The AI coach elucidates the sourced content and its relevance, akin to a human mentor, and prompts users to delve into these resources as “homework.”
Practica’s AI functions more like an intelligent, curated search engine rather than a direct training tool for machine learning models. However, it’s the coaching component of the AI that stands out. The AI’s methodology blends instructional techniques, contextual questioning, identification of current job challenges for learning opportunities, alignment of learning progression with career aspirations, and acknowledgment of milestones. It intelligently organizes insights from selected materials into an interactive list, augmented with notes for future reference.
In contrast to generic AI chatbots, Practica’s AI retains a learner’s history, enabling skill-building continuity with each subsequent interaction, emulating the continuity a human coach offers.
“We strive to be deliberate in our approach…we track your developmental journey over time, allowing us to coach effectively, just like a human coach would,” Whittemore compares.
The system, under private testing since July, is now accessible to individual learners at a monthly fee ranging from $10 to $20. A team-oriented version for employers is also under limited testing.
With this pricing strategy, Practica aims to democratize executive coaching.
“We’re optimistic about broadening the reach of executive coaching,” Whittemore expresses. “Our goal is to familiarize more individuals with the efficacy of executive coaching through AI, encouraging them to consider our premium human coaching services.”
Practica has secured $1.5 million through two funding rounds in 2021 and 2022, prior to its pivot to AI coaching. These rounds, spearheaded by Script Capital, also saw contributions from over 40 angel investors, many of whom are domain experts where Practica concentrates its coaching efforts.
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