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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Health
Sarah Sloat

AI as a life coach: experts share what works, what doesn’t and what to look out for

OpenAI
an illustration of the side profile humanoid figure against a numbered list of new years goals on a sheet of paper
Can ChatGPT really help you change your life – or just flatter you? Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/Unsplash

If you’re like a lot of people, you’ve probably ditched your new year resolutions by now. Setting goals is hard; keeping them is harder – and failure can bring about icky feelings about yourself.

This year, in an effort to game the system and tilt the scales toward success, some people used AI for their 2026 resolutions. It’s the latest step in an ongoing trend: in September 2025, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, released findings showing that using the AI chatbot for personal guidance is very common.

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