The coach and bestselling author has created a new chatbot to support him in his ‘knowledge philanthropy.’

Marshall Goldsmith is taking a leap into the AI era. Seeing AI as a valuable assistant, the world-renowned executive coach and author of books that include What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and The Earned Life is building MarshallGoldsmith.ai — a chatbot to further disseminate his teachings.

By training the bot to answer questions as he would — it’s already fielded 100,000 queries — he’s learning to make it sound more like a person and less like a robot. “My computer bot right now is excellent. It can answer questions better than me,” he says. “I’m not saying it to be modest. I’m not a computer. It knows everything I know plus a lot more.”

Goldsmith is also the founder of the 100 Coaches program, a nonprofit that mentors and trains leaders. Currently, he has 400 trainees, after receiving 18,000 applications.

One of his goals is to make his knowledge available to everyone he can by giving it away in what he calls “knowledge philanthropy.”

“You can’t steal my intellectual property. It’s impossible to steal. Why? I give it away. You can’t steal what one gives you.”

This approach, powered by technology partners at the company Fractal Analytics, emerged from Goldsmith’s participation in a program called Design the Life You Love, where he was asked for his heroes — and why he admired them. After citing clients Paul Hersey, Ken Blanchard, Warren Bennis, Frances Hesselbein and Alan Mulally, he realized the common thread: “They’re very kind and generous people who are great teachers.”

While many leaders are worried about someone stealing their intellectual property, Goldsmith says he has one advantage over them: “I’m almost 76,” he says. “I’m going to be dead anyway.”

He sees it as paying it forward. “I recently called Buddha up. I said, ‘You know, Buddha, I use your stuff all the time. Should I send you a commission check?’ You know what Buddha said? ‘It’s cool. Just do whatever you want.’”

Goldsmith spoke recently with Chris Benguhe, founder and president of the Dave Alexander Center for Social Capital and publisher of the Social Capital Insider. Click on the link below to watch the conversation.