THE FINDING
The way to roll out AI coaching so employees actually use it is to attach it to a program people already attend, one program at a time, instead of announcing it to the whole company at once. MacLean-Fogg, a 2,400-person manufacturer, learned that by doing it the other way first.
Nick Stauffer has a gym membership he says he has never used. He brings it up when talking about AI coaching because it captures a problem HR leaders know well: paying for access does very little to change someone’s habits.
“Just because we pay for an AI coach, just because they have an account does not mean that they have necessarily adopted it,” says Stauffer, Director of Organizational Development at MacLean-Fogg.
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The industrial and automotive component manufacturer began using Cloverleaf in January 2024. By the September 2026 webinar, its business included about 2,400 employees across roughly 20 manufacturing facilities, with two-thirds working on the frontline. Nick’s challenge was to extend development beyond the small share of employees who received individual coaching.
MacLean-Fogg built coaching into mentoring, onboarding, leadership development, and recurring meetings. It also learned something about the order of those efforts. In his presentation, Nick acknowledged that invitations had gone out before the programs were ready to give people a reason to use the tool. [2]
For HR and L&D teams deciding how to roll out AI coaching, his experience suggests a useful starting point: choose an existing program, identify a moment where coaching can help, and give people a specific way to use it there. Expand as you learn what works.
How to introduce AI coaching and address employee concerns
MacLean-Fogg already used DISC widely. Employees were familiar with assessments, although the insight often went little further than the initial report. That familiarity helped Nick introduce Cloverleaf. It also meant he was starting somewhere different from an organization where employees distrust assessments.
Before the first invitations went out, the company published its boundaries: results were for development, would never be used to rate or rank people, and described preferences rather than limits. Employees could choose what they shared and with whom.
That promise shaped the language employees saw. When Nick learned that “assessment” sounded evaluative to some people, the team used “questionnaire” in its introductory video. The video explained practical uses, such as preparing for a difficult conversation or understanding a teammate.
Participation was voluntary, with a clearly stated condition for mentoring: employees who chose to join that program needed to complete DISC first. Completing it was a condition of joining the program, not of employment.
Before writing your launch email, answer the questions an employee might hesitate to ask: What can I use this for? Who sees my information? Could it affect how my manager evaluates me? Make sure your actual practices support the answers.
Key Takeaways
1. Publish the guardrails before the invitation to use the AI coach.
2. Make it super easy to set up and access.
3. Attach it to programs people already attend.
4. Keep adoption numbers and growth numbers apart.
How to simplify employee access to AI coaching
One of Nick’s most useful rollout changes was a browser bookmark.
Employees kept asking where to find the AI coach and other company tools. Working with IT, MacLean-Fogg added a managed folder of links to employees’ browsers. A link sat alongside the resources they already used, pointing to the company’s single sign-on address. Employees no longer had to find the original invitation or save the address themselves.
The team also linked the header image in relevant emails directly to the application. If someone asked how to get in, the answer was simple: click the banner.
Nick recalled that the browser configuration took IT about ten minutes. That is his experience, rather than a universal implementation estimate. The repeatable lesson is to test the route an employee will take the second or third time they need coaching. A welcome email can get someone started; a visible link helps them return.
01
Explain how employees’ AI coaching information will be used
Before employees received their first invitation, MacLean-Fogg made a clear promise: the AI coach was there to help them develop. Their assessment results would never be used to rate their performance, rank them against coworkers, or decide what they were capable of doing. Employees could choose what to share and with whom.
The company’s launch video puts it plainly: “Your results are never used to rate, rank, or evaluate you. They are yours.”
Nick’s team also learned that some of the language familiar to HR meant something different to employees. Take the word “assessment.” To Nick, it was an everyday part of development. To some employees, it sounded like something negative.
So the team called it a “questionnaire” in the introductory video.
That small change was part of a broader effort to explain the AI coach in terms employees cared about: preparing for a difficult conversation, understanding a teammate, or figuring out how to better support a direct report.
“We take off the L&D hat,” Nick said.
The same thinking shaped participation. Using the AI coach was voluntary. Employees who wanted to join the mentoring program needed to complete DISC first because the results helped inform mentor matching. But joining the mentoring program was their choice.
In a decentralized manufacturing company, Nick knew that distinction mattered. As he put it, “People don’t like to be told what to do.”
02
Make the AI coach easy to find in employees’ browsers and emails
One of the most useful changes MacLean-Fogg made started with a question employees kept asking: Where do I find it?
They asked about the AI coach, but they also asked about other company tools. Each application had its own address, and employees had to find an old email or remember to save a bookmark.
Nick worked with IT to put a folder of company links directly into employees’ managed browsers. The AI coach sat alongside the other tools they already used, and the link took them to the company’s single sign-on page. Employees didn’t have to save it themselves or remember another username and password.
Nick recalled that the setup took IT about ten minutes.
There is one detail worth checking with your IT team: adding the bookmark doesn’t necessarily make the bookmarks bar visible. Make sure employees can actually see the link when they open their browser.
The team made another simple change to its emails. The banner at the top of each email about the AI coach linked directly to it. When someone asked how to get in, the answer was easy: click the picture at the top of the email.
These changes gave employees a familiar place to return whenever they needed the coach. They also gave HR a straightforward answer to a question that otherwise kept coming back.
03
Introduce AI coaching through a program employees already participate in
Give employees a reason to use the AI coach as part of something they’re already doing. That might mean preparing for a mentoring conversation, getting ready to join a new team, or working through a question before a team meeting.
MacLean-Fogg began with a small pilot in its early careers program for recent college graduates. The goal was to give participants coaching that was personal to them and useful within the program.
As the rollout expanded, Nick learned that an invitation alone wasn’t enough. Employees needed to know when to use the coach and how it would help with the task in front of them. Looking back, MacLean-Fogg identified preparing those programs before sending broader invitations as something it would do differently.
Start with one program. Decide where the AI coach can help, then put the instructions into the agenda or preparation employees already receive. Let people try it, find out what helped, and adjust before expanding.
At MacLean-Fogg, that approach now shows up in mentoring, onboarding, and recurring team meetings.
How HR business partners can help managers use AI coaching
At MacLean-Fogg, HR business partners were already helping leaders work through problems at individual facilities. Nick saw an opportunity to make the AI coach part of those conversations.
“I cannot coach thirty teams,” he wrote in the presentation. “I can equip the HR business partners who are already sitting with them.”
In the webinar, Nick described a familiar request: a manager calls the EVP of HR because an employee is struggling on a project, and he needs help figuring out how to talk about it.
She opens Claude, which is connected to the AI coach, and explains the situation. What is happening on the project? What does the manager need to address? The connection brings in assessment information about both people, so the suggestions can account for their working styles alongside the details she provides.
She can then work through the response with the manager, helping him decide how to approach the conversation.
For Nick, the value goes beyond preparing for that one discussion. The HR leader can also show the manager how to use the AI coach himself the next time he needs help.
That is what he wanted HR partners to feel comfortable doing: opening the tool, working through a real situation, and helping someone use what they learn. A reminder to “go try the AI coach” only gets people so far. Walking through a problem together gives them an experience they can repeat.
Start your HR team’s training with the requests they already hear from managers. Help me give feedback. Help me understand why this conversation keeps going wrong. Help me explain a change to my team.
Have HR partners practice describing the situation, asking follow-up questions, and reviewing the suggestions. Then have them walk a manager through the same process, including what they would adjust and why. That gives managers a way to prepare for future conversations while keeping HR involved when they need more support.
How to measure whether employees are using and benefiting from AI coaching
Giving employees access to an AI coach is a starting point. To understand whether it is helping, you need to know what people do with it and what happens afterward.
MacLean-Fogg’s September 2026 presentation reported 1,270 assessments completed and approximately 248,000 coaching moments delivered. Those numbers show how much information employees contributed and how much coaching reached them. They don’t tell you whether someone used a tip to prepare for a meeting or tried a different approach with a teammate.
For that, MacLean-Fogg also asked employees about their development:
17 of the 18 people who checked in on a chosen goal said they were growing on it, approximately 94%.
85% of respondents to a survey of 72 people said their team’s performance had improved since starting.
That feedback is encouraging. It reflects the experience of the people who responded, though, rather than the entire workforce, and it doesn’t establish how much of the improvement came from AI coaching.
MacLean-Fogg was also clear about what it wasn’t ready to claim. Its materials describe promotions, internal mobility, and retention as “ours to correlate over the next several quarters, not to claim today.”
For your rollout, start with what you hoped the coach would help employees do. If you introduced it through mentoring, ask whether people used it to prepare and whether that preparation helped the conversation. If you used it in onboarding, ask the new hire and manager which recommendations they tried and what they found useful.
Track participation alongside those answers. Someone returning to the coach with a new question, trying a suggestion, and explaining what happened gives you more to work with than a login count alone.
For more on choosing those measures, see how to measure AI coaching ROI beyond logins.
How to keep AI coaching separate from employee performance ratings
Employees need to know that the promise you made at launch still applies when performance reviews and promotion decisions come around.
At MacLean-Fogg, assessment results help people understand how they work and how to approach each other. They are not used to determine a performance rating or whether someone is ready for promotion.
The presentation gives a useful example: a manager needs to tell a strong performer that someone else received a promotion. The AI coach can help the manager think through how to explain that decision. Would it help to walk through the criteria and reasoning first? How can the manager acknowledge the employee’s disappointment and discuss what comes next?
The promotion decision comes from the organization’s review process. The coaching helps the manager have the conversation.
Make that distinction part of manager training. Show people how to use assessment information when preparing feedback, discussing development, or explaining a decision. Be equally clear that a working-style preference is not evidence of someone’s ability or potential.
Watch: How MacLean Fogg Embedded an AI Coach Across Their Talent Lifecycle
Start your AI coaching rollout with one existing program
Nick’s closing advice was simple: “Just try something.”
MacLean-Fogg’s first video needed changes. So did its invitation emails. The team learned by putting coaching into employees’ hands, listening to their questions, and finding places where it could help.
You can start with a mentoring session, a new hire’s first week, or a manager preparing to give feedback. Show people how to use the AI coach for that situation. Afterward, ask what helped and what they would change. Use what you learn to introduce it to the next group.
The goal is for employees to recognize a moment when coaching could help and know how to get it.
Think about a conversation your managers or employees need to have this week. Take the product tour to see how an AI coach can help them prepare with a better understanding of themselves and the people they work with.
