Costa Coffee is on a journey most L&D teams are still trying to figure out: using AI coaching to develop managers at scale, without a top-down push, across every level of leadership from barista to boardroom. Paul Phelan, Leadership and Capability Manager at Costa, shares what that journey has actually looked like: the pilot that surprised them, how they wove coaching into their leadership programmes, what happened when hundreds of store managers encountered it for the first time, and how they brought the sceptics with them along the way.

• AI coaching can develop managers at scale across all levels of an organisation, from frontline to executive. Piloting and embedding coaching into existing programmes drives more natural, lasting adoption.