AI Coach vs Human Coach: What Each One Actually Does Better

As of 2026, artificial intelligence has arrived in pretty much any sector of society, and karting is not excluded. It's arrived in karting too. And even though karting has not been used to welcome technological advancements like maybe other forms of racing, like obviously Formula One, you know, karting has always been a bit more traditional in a sense, with not so many technology advancements or innovations in the last 20, 30 years. But I'm sure that now with AI, it's different. Yes, it's going to definitely be taken over by AI, in a way that it's going to augment it. It's going to augment the people in motorsports already. I don't think it's going to replace necessarily the mechanics. I don't think it's going to replace the coaches. Obviously, it's not going to replace the drivers. I just feel like everything is going to be augmented and improved by the use of AI. And what basically AI does, it works through data. If you have large sums of data to be analyzed, well, that's where AI shines. If you have no data captured you will not have any AI insight, and therefore any AI advantage.

But what I'm talking about today is the comparison between an AI coach versus a human coach. Of course it's going to be hard to get an AI to do absolutely everything a human coach does, but at the same time, it will be impossible for a human coach to replace an AI. Because if you think about it, I mean, even now, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, they're so much more intelligent than pretty much anybody on earth, if you think about it in terms of general knowledge, but also in terms of specific knowledge. Of course, in some sectors, they may not have had enough training data yet to be, let's say, better than an expert, but I believe soon they will be, again, far more intelligent than any human being in each field. So given that, I believe that some sectors like karting will still require the human touch, and that's why I believe it's not going to be either AI or a human is going to be chosen, but I think the combination of the two is going to be the way forward, in order to extract performance and unlock lap times, and therefore win races. And that is exactly the reason why I've invested all these months of work of my life in creating, in PURPL, because I generally believe that if you can combine a world-class coach with a world-class AI, nobody can really compete with you. And I just thoroughly mean this, and I'm seeing this already on myself, every time I go driving and I combine my own judgment with the AI that basically tracks and parses all the data that my MyChron collects. Well, you know, it's just crazy the results that happen. So let's have a look at the differences between an AI coach and a human coach.

What a human coach sees

Well, let's start by a human coach. I mean, I believe that the human coach will always be able to understand all the things that are difficult to track with data, or almost impossible. For example, like the driver's posture on a kart, whether he's leaning too out or leaning too in, whether he's grabbing the steering in the wrong way, whether he's pulling instead of pushing with his hands, etc. So all those things, it's going to be very hard for the AI to tell. I mean, you would need to have a camera of a driver, looking the driver from outside, and being able to tell that, which obviously would be really hard, as well as the overtaking and the race strategy, that's something the AI won't be able to do. So I just generally feel like it's going to be impossible to replace a human coach, because again, most of these things are going to be impossible for AI to be doing. I mean, as I said, you would need to have so many cameras that would track you, track your movements. But even, you know, even then it would be impossible. Like, even if you had sensors that would be able to tell how much you're grabbing the steering, based on the corners, where your hands are located, I think it's just impossible. So, like, the race strategy. So I feel like the human coaches are going to thrive, you know, in this world. They're not going to be replaced by AI. Obviously, you need to go with a proper, successful human coach. You don't want to just pick the first one, because obviously bad coaching is much worse than not being coached at all. So that's what I always say, you're gonna instead prefer to pay a little more for a proper coach than going with a cheaper one. But of course, in some areas, for some drivers, it's very hard to even access a coach, so I totally get it.

What an AI coach can do

But if you wanted to have an idea of what AI does compared to a human coach, well, an AI coach is going to be able to do all those things that a human can't really be doing. For example, humans can't parse, access and calculate thousands, and even millions, of data points, as, you know, machines and algorithms can. So by definition, large sets of data are just going to be able to be analyzed by AIs, especially if you want to do that in a short amount of time, you know, if you want to do that in just 30 seconds, instead of having to wait for your data telemetry guy to take one hour to go through everything, every single corner, every single lap, and then come up with a report and practical tips to go faster. So AI can do that, and it's the only one who can do that, and for sure, if you want to have competitive intelligence that is going to find lap time, you need AI.

I mean, think about all the sensors that are logged into your kart. And not only the sensors that you can see, like the exhaust temperature, the EGT, that basically tells the temperature coming out of your exhaust, but also, like the water, the temperature sensor that tells you how hot your radiator is. So those are the visible ones. But inside your MyChron, for example, or your Alfano or your Unipro, whatever you're using, there's a bunch of accelerometers and a gyroscope, of course, together with a GPS data sensor that tracks all your, obviously, speed, but also your lateral acceleration, longitudinal acceleration, and all the, yeah, accelerometers, vertical, lateral and longitudinal. So you can really have a lot of information from your MyChron, but of course it won't be anywhere close to the information you get from a Formula One car with thousands of sensors. You know, in karting, you could still add the brake sensor, the throttle sensor, the steering sensor, even though MyChron already has its own, but I always just find it very difficult to be working on it, because it keeps having to be recalibrated, it's just not super accurate, but I mean, that's a story for another day. Of course, you could also add the tire temperature sensors and the tire pressure sensors, but then again, you would always need, like, one extra mechanic just to take care of all the sensors on the kart. So it's going to be really hard to be doing that in karting, with limited time between sessions and with limited people and resources.

But of course, if you had more data, that more data would translate into more feedback and insights. And more feedback and insights, which is 90 percent of times, results in better lap time. Of course, you may have sometimes some information overload, but if you can channel that information in a useful way, and then, thanks through an experience of analyzing that data, for sure you'll be able to create very powerful combinations that will unlock real lap time and allow you to win races. So AI is really able to do that. For example, this is going to be able to tell the standard deviation, so how consistent your lines are. For example, you can really tell right now, and there's a feature doing that in PURPL, that tells you how consistent you have been on the racetrack. You know, it's crazy how many times you were able to match that line in a specific corner, just down to the centimeter. You know, of course you rely always on the GPS from the data logger you're using, but, you know, based on the data that it has, it's going to be able to tell, okay, this lap you were one meter further away from the white line, for example, compared to your average line. Then that's huge. You can really track whether you make a different line and it worked out or it didn't work out, because you made more distance, maybe you had less grip because of doing that line. But then also you can really compute so many data points about, for example, the G-force. You can tell, okay, there's the grip that you had this session, you could really find the grip available and understand whether you had too much grip or not enough grip. And you can see, based on that, whether your lap time improved because of lack of grip, or vice versa.

I mean, you can have the AI build a friction circle that literally tells, through the whole lap, how much grip you had available, whether it was enough or not enough, and how it compares to another session, whether that session you had more grip or less grip. But you can compare this, obviously, with everything. You know, obviously there's the EGT, exhaust temperature, the RPMs, the water temperature. And yes, while on the MyChron you may have the absolute values, for example the maximum RPM or the maximum EGT or the maximum water temperature, you can always have the minimum displayed there of course, but what you can see on the AI is corner by corner where each of these values are, you know, increasing or decreasing, where are the areas that you need to work on the driving, or where you can tune up the car to make sure those values get into the range, as I like to call it, getting to that performance sweet spot where, you know, everything is perfectly in that window, optimal operating window, like the tires, the engine, you know, and then obviously the driver. So when everything is in the optimal operating window, that's when you are gonna set pole positions and win races. But it's also really cool, because it allows you to create metrics that allow you to tell how consistent you were, for example, in that session, whether your lap times came earlier in the session or later on in the session, and visualize that in a graph or chart. And then, of course, you could have, like, an AI coach that literally goes corner by corner and identifies the areas that you're losing the most time, and literally coming out with a sort of movie summary of all the corners you're losing, and literally showing you, on the map, in terms of lines, you need to do in order to make your perfect lap, let's say. And also, in terms of your braking technique, it's going to tell you whether your brake G's are soft or really strong, and whether your actual braking trace is really good or not good enough, because maybe you need to trail the brakes more. But again, those things are doable also on the Race Studio 3, for example, telemetry, I mean, those kind of things. But the cool thing is that you can visualize them in a different way, but also you could come up with really cool insights.

Unlimited memory

And there's one more thing that comes with the AI, is that you have basically unlimited memory. And Race Studio 3 is not going to remember whether your current major issue is, your, for example, braking, or your consistency, or your minimum speed, whatever, the AI is going to be able to record and store all your data, and it's going to store your insights, and it's going to remember everything. So it's going to know whether you, as a racing driver, have currently these sort of weaknesses, and it's going to repeat you over and over again to work on those things, and remind you to work on those things until you're perfect or close to perfect, you know? And a coach will not be able to have this unlimited memory. You know, he has lots of things to do in his life, and he has lots of drivers too, probably, so he's probably going to forget from day by day, or even from session to session. So imagine if you go in your AI, in this case PURPL, you would ask, oh, what did I do wrong six months ago at Lonato, for example, the specific track, and it will come up with all the insights and the answers of what you did wrong, and Race Studio 3 wouldn't be able to do that, and not even your coach himself would be able to do that. So that's something really, really cool, like the memory side of it is just fascinating and very valuable in my opinion. And I just feel that, of course, AI is not perfect, still needs to be improved every day, new models are going to come out, and it's going to be improved every day, in terms of both the analysis, but also the commentary and the insights that derives from the data that it's been given.

Unbiased feedback

But, you know, the cool thing is that it's unbiased, in a way that it's just going to tell you things straight in your face, with honesty, whereas maybe sometimes your coach has the interest of making you feel happy or nice, and pleasing you. But again, that may be not the right thing you need in that moment. You may need to be shaken up and be told straight in the face exactly where you're losing time. And sometimes, again, mechanics and coaches, they may see something that makes you lose time, but that may not be the one thing that you should be working on right now. That may be the improvement area number four in this priority list. And so, focusing too much on that priority, because that coach sees, maybe in that specific corner, that maybe, I don't know, is that you're carrying too much speed, for example, at the apex, and he wants to go a bit slower, maybe that's not the main priority, because maybe your main priority is to use the track more on the entries, to use more the brakes, and to get on the throttle maybe a little bit earlier, you know, etc, etc. But if you again rely on a human coach, it's going to be hard to even classify and create a ranking of the priority areas that need to be improved the most. So I just feel that it's really cool to see this being provided by the AI, and the coaches just will need to be open to use these tools, so that they can have an easier time, and, you know, their job is going to become easier too.

They complete each other

So it's gonna, I said complete one another, you know, I don't feel like it's going to be a replacement of a coach, it will instead complete his job and enhance his job. And I just really feel excited, because drivers gonna receive better coaching, they will have their memory, their coaching memory stored, and it's just going to be so much easier, and it's going to democratize karting coaching in a way. And you know, drivers won't necessarily need to rely on the feedback of the few hard-to-access world-class coaches in the world, and instead, you know, they can literally level up any coach that maybe is not experienced into, again, a world-class coach, or even better.

So, yeah, I just generally feel that the combination of the workflows from the coach, obviously watching the driver on the track, and understanding exactly where he's losing time, and also about everything that is not really data-trackable, for example, as I said, the posture of the driver, the hands position, the leaning in, leaning out, or the hands technique, all those things are not data-based, they are more like visual and experience-based. So all those things are just impossible for the AI to even mention that. So it's just going to be coming down to the coach telling the driver, based on his experience, using his human pattern recognition skill, like, you know, until there's a camera that literally is able to track the driver while he's driving, and basically track and understand and recognize what the driver is doing with their body posture and everything else, it's going to be very hard to get to the point where an AI is fully going to replace a coach. But I just feel, generally, like, yeah, it's going to be really hard, and maybe it will not, but still AI is going to be able to replace and enhance most of the work of a coach, in terms of, like, analytics, going through the actual data, that's going to be mainly replaced, but in terms of then going down to the, set, all the intangible and all the experience-based coaching, well, that's something that all the coaches will be able to do, and ideally the world-class coaches. So remember, the AI, like PURPL in this case, is not going to replace necessarily coaches, I don't really feel it can, but I think it's going to enhance massively their work, and a driver-coach that uses PURPL is just massively going to enhance his work, and his value is going to be perceived higher. And I generally believe that the coach should totally be okay with that, and he shouldn't be feeling guilty of using this AI coaching tool to, you know, help him kind of streamline the core improvement areas the driver need to work on. Instead, he just needs to use it as any professional uses tools, you know, to develop the craft and reaching the target that every profession is aiming for in their career. For example, a surgeon needs to use all sorts of tools to come up with a surgery, you know, he's not going to be using his bare hands. And, you know, also marketing professionals, they also need to use plenty of analytics tools in order to track the website visitors, track the ad campaigns, et cetera. You know, they all need tools. Now, finally, coaches will be able to have a bunch of these tools at their disposal, so they can come up with better insights, and finally being able to provide better value to the end user, which is the driver himself.

Remember to sign up for free for PURPL, give it a try, and see your lap times drastically improving. See you next time.