4 lessons we need to learn about digital and AI coaching

At the beginning of the month I was privileged to host the Digital and AI Coaches' Conference alongside Jonathan Passmore , welcoming almost 40 speakers and hundreds of coaches from around the world. We had a wonderful time with varied and fascinating insights into every corner of the industry, so I thought I ought to capture my reflections.

Unfortunately, it turned out I had so many it's taken me several weeks to even begin, so rather than waiting until I've completed my thinking I thought it best to start sharing my biggest takeaways.

What is digital and AI coaching?

Something that lay behind a lot of speakers' contributions was definitions of the three words in the conference title! What do we mean when we say Digital, AI, or Coaching? And what do our clients mean? Should we even be allowed to use the word 'coaching' in the name of 'AI coaching'? Does it even matter? If it does, what's the right response?

This disconnect leads to real-world consequences. When individuals engage with digital or AI coaching platforms, they have expectations around the process and outcomes that may or may not be met. If introducing technology leads to frustration and disengagement for clients, this is a bad thing. If it leads to short-term satisfaction but more fundamental concerns, this is a bad thing. Digital and particularly AI are being developed and adopted at an accelerating rate, and if the coaching profession fails to support this understanding we risk giving an impression of irrelevance in the very field that's taken several decades to carefully shape.

We must increase our understanding and evolve our language and approach to meet clients where they are. Rather than digging our heels into semantics and rigid definitions, our focus probably needs to move to impact, which is an area that coaching historically has shied away from (for good reasons a lot of the time) but which technology lends itself to. We might also need to rethink AI’s role in the coaching ecosystem. If AI is meeting a client’s needs more effectively than a human coach, that's a signal to adapt, not resist.

Transactional vs transformational coaching

Various speakers, most notably Prof. Nicky Terblanche (PhD) , David Tee and Jazz Rasool talked about how 'transactional' coaching is extremely susceptible to automation, encouraging us to lean into deeper human transformation in our practice. AI is brilliant at providing data and interpretations of data, and nudging at the right time, but it fails abysmally at holding space and exhibiting intuition.

The future of 'human coaching' lies in stepping beyond this transactional realm. We've got to embrace the aspects of coaching that AI cannot replicate. This week I've had two coaching clients start crying on me for different reasons, and I'd like to think that the deep emotional response I was feeling provided something substantially different from the sort of response an AI would, however much empathy it apparently demonstrates.

The question needs to move beyond whether or not AI will replace coaches. If coaching that follows the GROW model is all that's needed, why would a multinational with tight budgets pay ten times the price for the privilege of a human?

Higher accessibility, lower impact?

Digital and AI coaching are paradoxically both more accessible and less impactful than traditional coaching in key areas. Nicky Terblanche argued that AI coaching can be seen as better than humans simply because it can meet more people than humans can, and Rebecca Rutschmann described about how AI coaches are perceived to be less judgemental than humans, making it easier for people to be vulnerable. But there is a shadow side.

The presence of a human in a coaching engagement creates a sense of obligation and commitment. Our expectation on a client expecting them to follow through often leads to greater accountability and action, while this relational dynamic is missing with an AI (appropriately in my opinion; let's not start encouraging people to anthropomorphise a computer more than we already do). Even with a digital platform, it's often far too easy for a client to simply ghost their coach in a way that would have been much less likely to happen in the olden days. AI coaching is therefore extremely likely to lead to superficial engagement without meaningful change, unless we support its development.

Let's respond first of all by therefore adopting AI appropriately to provide its benefits to our clients while mitigating the risks for them. And secondly, let's continue to engage the professional bodies in developing ethical and practical frameworks that are fit for purpose. We hold coaches to standards of skill, effectiveness and responsibility; surely those standards should be higher for machines operating at greater scale.

Accelerators not replacements?

Many questions without answers were raised across the two days. Maybe we need to have a 2026 update... One particular area was how AI can work alongside human coaches, which feels like a much more complex topic than AI delivering coaching conversations itself. In a coaching practice AI can provide all sorts of benefits, including data analytics, automations and role-playing simulations, that can complement and enhance our practice.

With that particularly in mind, I've opened up a new offer for members of the Coachtech Collective, in which we can walk through your practice in detail through a 1:1 conversation and create something together that supports the appropriate adoption of mature technology to allow each of us to lean into our humanity.

I left the conference feeling optimistic about the future of the coaching profession. Integrated models will emerge, through which AI enhances and expands on, but does not replace, the magic of being human.

Having a coaching mindset in a volatile world

That all said, there was one minor concern that emerged for me from the conference. Across the two days, the chat window was lively and engaging, at times diving into rabbit holes that often added just as much value as the invited speakers. People had relevant experiences, knowledge and insights.

But, at times, I wondered if the nature and tone of what was being shared bordered on what I might dangerously describe as not being coach-like. Curiosity is a key characteristic of coaches, and there were certain points where I felt like I could visually see the digging in of heels as certain sacred cows of coaching were put into confrontation with technology that needs to dismantle them in order to serve clients better (I've written about confidentiality previously).

Digital and AI present both challenges and opportunities. Coaches who resist change will find themselves obsolete. But those who remain curious are likely to lead the transformation of coaching itself. The great Marshall Goldsmith reminded us in one of the final sessions that coaching is all about serving the client, and AI can help us do that better at times.

Will we rise to this challenge that coaching is meeting? Will we work with one another to redefine what it means to be human in an era of increasingly impactful technology? The choice is ours.