Before you begin
Questions worth asking
If something here isn’t answered, write to us. A person reads it.
contact@mytayo.aiUnderstanding coaching
What is coaching?
Coaching is a forward-looking conversation that helps you name what you want and act on it. It is not therapy, and it assumes you are whole and capable. It also works: meta-analyses covering hundreds of studies find significant gains in goal-directed self-regulation, well-being, and performance (Theeboom 2014; Jones 2016).
Is Tayo therapy?
No. Tayo is based on life coaching. While both support personal growth, life coaching and therapy serve different purposes. Therapy focuses on mental health, healing, and recovery. Licensed therapists help you understand your past, resolve deep-rooted traumas, and manage clinical conditions like anxiety or depression. The primary goal is to move from a state of distress to functional health. Life coaching focuses on goal-setting, strategy, and future achievement. Coaches partner with individuals to bridge the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. The primary goal is to optimize performance, build new habits, and maximize personal or professional potential. In short, therapy helps you heal and stabilize, while coaching helps you excel and achieve.
Why AI instead of a human coach?
Access. A randomized trial found an AI coach matched human coaches on goal attainment, and a 2026 systematic review of the field concludes LLM coaching can make coaching available and affordable to far more people. Human coaching is excellent and we're not replacing it — we're reaching the roughly 16 million young adults who were never going to get it.
Why not just use ChatGPT?
Because the coaching layer is what does the work. A 2025 randomized trial compared LLM-powered coaching against raw GPT-4 and against human coaches: the purpose-built coach significantly outperformed raw GPT-4 on empathy, engagement, and encouragement, matched human coaches across every dimension measured, and produced the largest gains in positive affect of any group. A general chatbot answers questions. A coach asks them, one at a time, and remembers what you said last month.
Is Tayo for me?
Who is Tayo for?
Young adults, roughly 20 to 30, trying to cut through grind culture and name what they actually want. Especially first-generation and low-income young adults, who have always been priced out of coaching and have the most to gain from it.
What makes Tayo different from other coaching alternatives?
Platforms like BetterUp sell to employers, so you get access only if your company buys it. Freelance coaches run $200 to $500 an hour. Therapy looks inward at your mind; coaching looks across your whole life and forward. Nonprofit coaching programs do real work but usually focus on one dimension, typically school to career. Tayo is whole-person, accessible online, and built to be affordable.
What does it cost?
Free for beta users. Sign up on our waitlist for access.
How Tayo works
How long does the intake take?
Twenty-five to thirty minutes of open conversation. There are no forms and no multiple choice. You can pause and come back: your progress is kept.
Am I talking to a real person?
No. Your coach is AI, built on coaching methodology from the International Coaching Federation and trained on your intake. We're direct about this because a coaching relationship that starts with a misunderstanding isn't worth much. What's real is that it remembers everything you've told it and never starts from zero.
Can I change coach?
Any time, and you keep your full history. Your portrait and plan belong to you, not to a particular coach.
What technology is Tayo built on?
Established vendor APIs and foundation models — we don't train our own. What's ours is the layer on top: session design, coaching prompts, and cross-session memory, built with credentialed ICF coaches and rewritten repeatedly based on user feedback.
Your privacy
What happens to what I say?
Your sessions build your portrait and your plan, and nothing else. We don't sell your data, we don't train public models on it, and we don't hand it to advertisers. We will request permission before using your data, if at all.
What happens to my data?
Tayo collects your account details, your conversation transcripts, anything you choose to write or upload, and basic usage data on which features you use. It's never sold, and your reflections and conversations are never shared with advertisers. What's collected is used to run and personalize your coaching experience: your intake, your dashboard, your coaching sessions, and your strategic plan. For the full breakdown, see our privacy page.
About us
Is Tayo a company or a nonprofit?
We're building Tayo as a nonprofit and are applying for 501(c)(3) status. Coaching works, and access to it shouldn't depend on an employer's benefits budget.
Who is on your team?
A small team plus advisors who are credentialed coaches and proximate leaders.
