Case study: AI-enabled performance support product development

Gotchoo

An AI coach that helps international hires navigate U.S. workplace communication. It started as a client pilot and grew into a standalone product.

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Multinational manufacturer, relocation program

Pilot Client

Executives and senior technical leaders moving to the U.S.

Audience

Training Specialist, Instructional Designer

My Role

Claude (Anthropic API), ChatGPT custom GPT, Netlify, GitHub

Tools

AI coach · Scenario scripts · Practice challenges

Tools

From prototype to pilot to product

Each version answered a question the previous one raised. The pilot result belongs to Cultural Compass; gotchoo is what I built from what the pilot taught me.

PTOTORYPE

A laptop screen displaying a Chat GPT webpage titled 'Cultural Compass' with a profile picture, description, and several user comments or statements.

Cultural Compass custom GPT

Tested the core idea quickly: can an AI coach translate communication styles into usable U.S. workplace language?

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PILOT

Tablet screen displaying a chart titled 'The Compass', with a scale from 1 to 7. The chart has categories like 'Communicating', 'Evaluating', 'Persuading', 'Leading', 'Deciding', 'Trusting', 'Disagreeing', and 'Scheduling'. Each category has points representing home tendency (blue circles) and U.S. context (yellow diamonds) on the scale. The highlighted row is 'Evaluating' with different point positions. There is a note below the chart stating, 'A big gap on feedback style? The script adjusts. A compass, not a verdict.'

Cultural Compass web app

A five-step flow for relocating specialists: Intake, Compass, Library, Script, Practice.

35 of 50 pilot users applied a script in real meetings.

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PRODUCT

Screenshot of a mobile phone and tablet displaying a webpage for gotchoo, a cross-cultural workplace coaching service. The page features a greeting, a description, and options to build a plan or ask the coach, with colorful buttons and icons.

Gotchoo coach app

Rebuilt as a standalone web app for any new international hire, with a simpler four-step loop and a friendlier identity.

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The project at a glance

1. Performance goal

New hires push back, give feedback and ask for decisions clearly in U.S. meetings.

2. Gap

They understood the cultural concepts but lacked the words in the moment.

3. Intervention

Situation-specific scripts, delivered in Slack or Teams right before the meeting.

4. Measure

Behavior transfer: did they use a script in a real workplace conversation?

Skilled people, unwritten rules

Context: Executives and senior technical specialists from Germany, Turkey and Brazil had just started working for a major automotive brand in the U.S. Cross-cultural training had taught them the concepts.

Technical leaders relocating to the U.S. arrived with strong technical skills. What tripped them up was communication: how directly to raise a risk, how to read feedback, how to speak up in a

What it couldn’t give them was language: what to say when a meeting starts in ten minutes and they need to push back, give feedback or ask for a decision without sounding abrupt or overexplaining.

The design decision: scripts, not modules

In the first 90 days, learners don’t need a textbook. They need a few lines they can say out loud. So I stopped designing long modules and started designing scripts: short, situation-specific language that sharpens the person’s own voice instead of replacing it.

Pilot version Culture Compass

Designed backward from performance

I started with what people needed to do differently at work, then designed the smallest intervention that could support it.

A flowchart with six interconnected circles, each representing a step in a process. The steps are: 1. Goal, 2. Behavior, 3. Capability, 4. Intervention, 5. Application, 6. Indicator. The sixth circle is dark purple and contains text about script application and a pilot test result.

Three lenses, one conversation

The coach doesn't run on generic AI advice. Its culture libraries, its conversation style, and the level of support it gives each come from a different body of work. The coach acts where the three intersect.

WHAT DIFFERS

Comparison chart showing differences in communication, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling style between U.S. norms and a user's home style. U.S. norms favor direct, egaliatian, task-based, confluational, linear time, and low-context approaches, while the user's style is more indirect, hierarchical, application-focused, hierarchical, top-down, relationship-based, and flexible.

Erin Meyer, The Culture Map

The culture libraries are built on Meyer's culture scales: how people communicate, give feedback, persuade, lead, decide, build trust, disagree, and schedule. The coach places the user's home culture and the U.S. on the same scale, so a mismatch has a name instead of feeling personal.

Diagram titled 'Dialogue' with five foundations of conversation: Love, Humility, Faith, Hope, and Critical Thinking, each with a description.

HOW THE LEARNER THINKS

Paulo Freire, reflection and dialogue

The coach asks before it tells. The user names the situation in their own words and reflects on why it played out the way it did. Learning starts from their experience, not a rulebook, and they stay in charge of what they say.

HOW MUCH SUPPORT

Diagram illustrating Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development with three concentric circles: the inner circle labeled 'On their own' indicating what the user can already do, the middle circle labeled 'Zone of Proximal Development' indicating what can be achieved with guidance, and the outer circle labeled 'Out of reach, for now' representing tasks currently beyond the user's ability.

Lev Vygotsky, Zone of Proximal Development

The coach works just beyond what the user can do alone. A script gives them a starting point; rehearsal builds the confidence to respond on their own in the real meeting.

Four parts work as one system. The loop at the end is what keeps the library improving after launch. A no-code system, so every fix could ship in minutes instead of waiting on a development cycle.

The build

1. The intake

Screenshot of a file named 'intake_form_question s.csv' with a CSV file icon.

Six quick questions: role, the scene they’re walking into, who’s in the room, the outcome they want (decision, information or relationship), how much time they truly have, and how they want to sound.

2. The library

File icon labeled 'Cultural_Dimensions_Starter_Dataset.csv' with CSV file extension.

Three tabs. Scenarios are the meetings everyone recognizes. Friction points are the habits that trip people up. Blocks are small, reusable lines tagged by type and tone.

Screenshot of four digital files with file names: 'user_prompt_template.txt', 'zapier_wiring.md', 'system_prompt_cultural_compass.txt', and 'us_baseline.json,' displayed as file icons on a computer screen.

3. The Compass

Inspired by Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map: eight dimensions on a 1–7 scale. When a gap spikes, on directness or feedback style for example, the script adjusts. It works as a compass, not a verdict.

4. The assembly

Computer file directory showing folders and files related to a project, including 'netlify/edge-functions', 'README.md', 'index.html', and 'netlify.toml'.

The assistant pattern-matches the intake to the library. A status update for executives pulls brevity, decision-framing and evidence. Peer feedback pulls kind directness and a quick why.

Testing and results

Before the pilot, I built a scenario test set around the three home cultures and reviewed outputs for accuracy, tone and stereotyping. Then I piloted the tool with 50 relocation specialists.

I measured behavior transfer, not satisfaction.

  • Output quality review: accuracy, tone, stereotypes

  • Behavior transfer: script used in a real conversation.

Measured in the pilot

Tablet screen displaying a profile chart titled "The Compass" with categories like communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling, showing different ratings on a scale from 1 to 7, with blue and yellow markers representing home tendency and U.S. context.

35 of 50

pilot participants (70%) used a Compass script in a real workplace conversation.

  • Edit distance, as a proxy for confidence

  • Time to first confident meeting

  • Decision velocity

  • Manager feedback at 30, 60 and 90 days

  • Scripts generated vs. scripts used

Signals the tool tracks

The learner flow, redesigned

“It didn’t make me sound American. It made me sound like myself, but in a way people here hear.”

Pilot participant, first month in the U.S.

Why Gotchoo works the way it does

The coach is built for the moment of need: in Slack or Teams, right before the meeting. Users bring a real situation and leave with words they can use.

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