Overview
AI Coach is a tool that provides your employees with personalized, science-backed guidance to help them turn engagement data into action, as well as navigate feedback, development, and daily challenges.
This guide is designed for Account Administrators and People teams rolling out AI Coach across their organization, with particular focus on the General Availability (GA) launch of AI Coach in Performance and General AI Coach scheduled for March 11, 2026.
AI Coach is available in three versions:
AI Coach in Surveys (Coach in Engage): General Availability (GA). Helps managers act on engagement survey results.
AI Coach in Performance: Currently in Beta. Helps managers draft reviews and prepare for performance conversations.
General AI Coach: Currently in Beta. Provides broad leadership and development coaching. Expanding to support all employees in a wider variety of topics in early March.
Tip: Want to learn how AI Coach is designed and powered? Read The Science Behind AI Coach
Step 1. Preparing for General Availability (March 11)
On March 11, 2026, General AI Coach and AI Coach in Performance move from Beta to General Availability (GA). This release automatically activates both features for eligible accounts while honoring any existing Admin preferences. This table outlines exactly what is changing and how to manage the transition.
Feature | Current Status | What’s Changing March 11 (GA) | Admin Considerations |
AI Coach in Surveys | Already in GA. | No changes. Continues to help managers act on engagement survey results. | Activated for 'everyone' (all users with report access) by default.
Access can be limited in Admin Coach Settings at any time. |
AI Coach in Performance | In Beta. | Automatically activated for all accounts with access to performance cycles.
New Capabilities:
| Set to 'everyone' by default on March 11.
Visibility Note:
Any pre-existing manual pilot group settings or deactivation of AI Coach overall will be honored. |
General AI Coach | In Beta. | Automatically activated for all accounts and expanded to all employees.
New Capabilities:
| Access is set to 'everyone' by default on March 11.
Any pre-existing manual pilot group settings or deactivation of AI Coach overall will be honored. |
All AI Coach Versions | Basic side panel. | Resizable coach side panel that opens by default on relevant pages. This ensures a seamless flow-of-work, allowing you to view core content and coaching tools side-by-side without any overlap. | Designed to make coaching more accessible "in the flow." |
Admin Coach Settings | Settings remain "Deactivated" until toggled. | "Activated" for "everyone" by default.
| You can deactivate, activate, or set up and refine pilot groups (up to 200 users) for each AI Coach product at any time. |
Key Launch Considerations
User Access: Manage access via self-serve Admin Coach Settings. While activated for everyone by default, you can limit access to specific pilot groups or deactivate the feature entirely (see Step 2 for more details).
Format: AI Coach is text-based only; it does not currently support voice, images, or document uploads.
Integrations: The tool operates exclusively within Culture Amp and does not integrate with external systems or third-party tools.
Confidentiality: All conversations are private to the user and are not visible to anyone else in the organization.
Data Access: Detailed information on how to use each AI Coach product is available in the following user guides:
Step 2. Manage Access via Admin Coach Settings
At any stage, before or after the General Availability launch, you will have the ability to configure access to each seperate coach module.
Updating the Admin Coach Settings
1. Sign in as an Account administrator.
2. Go to your Settings page and click on Coach.
3. You will see two tabs: Access and Usage. Click Manage access to control who can use Coach.
4. You’ll see separate toggles for each version of AI Coach depending on your available account products.
AI Coach in Surveys – Available to all accounts with Engagement as part of their Culture Amp subscription.
AI Coach in Performance (Beta) - Available to all accounts with access to Performance Cycles as part of their subscription.
General AI Coach (Beta) – Available to all accounts.
5. You’ll also see a separate Activate Coach toggle. This allows you to activate or deactivate AI Coach across all product areas (General, Surveys, and Performance) in one action.
Default setting: Activated for everyone
You can adjust these settings at any time by clicking Edit access:
Everyone: Keep activated for everyone
Pilot Group: Limit activation to a specific pilot group.
To add employees to a pilot group, enter their name or email in the add employees field and click Add.
Once you have made your selections, click Update access to save (max 200 employees).
No one: Deactivate temporarily.
Step 3. Drive Adoption and Track Usage
To ensure your organization realizes the full potential of AI Coach, it’s important to actively manage its launch and monitor how your teams are engaging with it. Use the following resources to drive meaningful adoption and measure your success.
How can I drive AI Coach adoption?
How can I drive AI Coach adoption?
Getting the most out of AI Coach means driving awareness and usage, especially among people leaders and team leads.
Tips for Encouraging Adoption:
Promote practical benefits: AI Coach helps people prepare for feedback, development, and tricky conversations
Share real examples: Show how AI Coach helped a manager find the right words for a performance review or feedback chat
Position it as an enabler, not another tool, especially for new or time-poor managers
Build momentum with pilot champions: Ask a few users to share their experience in team meetings or Slack
Include AI Coach in onboarding for managers or leadership development programs
How can I track usage and capture feedback for AI Coach?
How can I track usage and capture feedback for AI Coach?
AI Coach includes an AI Coach Usage Report, giving Account Administrators aggregate insights into adoption and engagement across all modules. Use this report alongside post-pilot surveys and retros to understand how people are interacting with Coach and identify areas for improvement.
How to Gather Feedback:
Send a quick post-pilot survey to ask:
What situations did you use AI Coach for?
What was most helpful?
What could be improved?
Run a short retro with pilot group leads or People Partners
Share feedback with your Culture Amp Customer Success Manager or the Culture Amp Support Team. We’re always looking for ways to improve AI Coach based on what we hear from customers.
Your Privacy with AI Coach
Your interactions with AI Coach are private. No one else in your organization, including your manager or administrators, can see your interactions or the content you share.
Culture Amp retains de-identified customer data securely within the Culture Amp platform to monitor and improve AI Coach over time.
This helps us enhance capabilities in high-demand areas and continuously refine the coaching experience.
We prioritize safety and fairness in AI, with safeguards actively in place, and we're committed to strengthening them over time.
No conversation data is stored outside of the Culture Amp environments
No data is logged by 3rd party large language providers or used to train 3rd party LLM models.
Want to learn more? Explore how we protect your data in our Security Trust Center. Additional resources are available in our Legal Hub, which includes specific AI Compliance FAQs.
Troubleshooting AI Coach Access
Make sure you’re logged in as an Account administrator.
Confirm access: If you can see the Coach settings page, that means you will have (at a minimum) AI Coach (General) available to activate or deactivate.
Can’t see the AI Coach Surveys option?
Check whether the overall Activate Coach toggle is visible.
You’ll need to turn this on before you can activate the other AI Coach instances (like Surveys or General).
Don’t see AI Coach in Performance?
Make sure your subscription has access to Performance Cycles. From December 4th, any eligible account should have the option to activate the feature manually in their AI Coach Settings.
Still not showing up?
If you have tried these troubleshooting steps and still need help, type "Ask a person" in a support conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.
FAQs
Can we customize the topics or add our own resources to AI Coach?
Can we customize the topics or add our own resources to AI Coach?
Not right now. AI Coach is built on Culture Amp’s People Science knowledge base and can’t be customized with company-specific content or policies.
Will AI Coach connect to other Culture Amp tools?
Will AI Coach connect to other Culture Amp tools?
AI Coach is currently standalone.
Can I export the list of users that have been added to the pilot group?
Can I export the list of users that have been added to the pilot group?
No, there’s currently no option to export the list of users assigned to the pilot group.
Can access be controlled by demographic groups, teams, or management populations?
Can access be controlled by demographic groups, teams, or management populations?
No. There are no controls in place to limit access to specific demographic groups. Admins can individually select up to 200 users to be included in a pilot group via self-serve controls available under Coach Settings.
Is AI Coach in Surveys available for past surveys?
Is AI Coach in Surveys available for past surveys?
Yes. When AI Coach in Surveys is enabled, it works on all surveys, past and present.
I’ve turned on AI Settings in Performance. Does that mean I have AI Coach for Performance?
I’ve turned on AI Settings in Performance. Does that mean I have AI Coach for Performance?
They’re different features!
When you turn on AI Settings in your Performance module, you enable two features:
Highlights and Opportunities – AI-generated summaries of employee feedback data.
Suggest Improvements – AI-powered guidance that helps employees and managers write more specific, actionable, and balanced feedback.
AI Coach for Performance is separate. It’s a conversational AI tool that helps managers draft performance reviews.
Can I exclude sensitive demographics (like ethnicity, gender, or disability) from AI Coach in Surveys?
Can I exclude sensitive demographics (like ethnicity, gender, or disability) from AI Coach in Surveys?
No, if those demographics are included in your survey report, AI Coach in Surveys can access them. However, it only sees aggregated data, not individual employee information. The only individual demographics visible to Coach are manager status and job title.
How do Culture Amp’s AI features impact energy use, emissions, or resource efficiency?
How do Culture Amp’s AI features impact energy use, emissions, or resource efficiency?
While our use of AI in our products does increase the supply chain emissions of our business, we are committed to growing in an environmentally responsible way. The largest contribution to managing our footprint is through optimising our engineering infrastructure. In 2022, we were able to reduce our overall footprint in our technical supply chain by 49%, and we’ve made additional improvements this year. We’re continuing to make investments to better understand AI’s specific contribution to our footprint, and will continue sharing our journey publicly. For more on our efforts in climate, please see our 2024 ESG Report.
Do you offer a sandbox or formal test environment for AI Coach?
Do you offer a sandbox or formal test environment for AI Coach?
We currently do not offer separate sandbox accounts or formal testing environments for any of our AI Coach features.
However, you can effectively test the AI Coach features before a wider organisational rollout using pilot groups when activating the features.
This is the easiest and most effective way to test all available AI Coach features.
Setup: An administrator can activate the AI Coach features for a select pilot group of users in the account-level AI Settings.
Testing Flexibility: For specific features like AI Coach in Performance, administrators can utilise the feature on any participant within a live performance cycle (even if they aren't a manager)
Data Safety & Privacy:
The conversational data generated during testing is private.
These conversations will not automatically apply to managers' reviews or survey results, and other users will not see these test conversations.
You have the option to delete the conversations afterwards to maintain data cleanliness.
➡️ Next Steps:
Plan your rollout: Identify your pilot group (optional), set your internal launch date, and define how you’ll measure success.
Review key resources:
Check and update your Coach settings: Confirm which versions are visible and set activation for everyone, a pilot group, or deactivated.
Prepare your internal comms: Let people leaders and managers know what Coach is, how it helps, and when it’s coming.
Collect feedback: After launch, check in with your pilot group or users to see what’s working and what could be improved.
Track Coach adoption with the AI Coach Usage Report
💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.