Coaching Voices: The Association for Coaching Podcast

AI has brought new urgency to questions the coaching profession has wrestled with for years: what is coaching, what value does it create, and what kind of practitioner should coach education produce? In episode 7 of our series, AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching, host Smaranda Dochia talks with Jonathan Reitz, a coach and coach educator with nearly three decades of experience, about his unexpected path from broadcasting into coaching and what that journey taught him about the profession's evolving identity.
 
Jonathan draws a sharp distinction between coach training, which transfers skills, and coach education, which reshapes the practitioner's identity, ethics, and self-awareness. He argues that meaningful development doesn't happen in the classroom alone: it comes from a blend of focused instruction, field experience, deliberate practice, community reflection, and a wider circle of trusted support. As AI tools increasingly position themselves as "coaches," he makes the case that providers and professional bodies carry an institutional responsibility to prepare adaptable, reflective practitioners, not just add an AI module to existing curricula.
 
The discussion also digs into the practical and ethical terrain coaches now have to navigate: GDPR-level data handling, client-controlled recordings, one-year deletion policies, and the difficulty buyers face in measuring coaching ROI. Jonathan's view is that coaches should aim for AI augmentation or redefinition of their practice - never inversion, where the coach hands off genuine cognitive engagement to a tool. Even coaches who choose not to use AI themselves, he notes, need enough fluency to understand the language and developmental world their clients now inhabit.
 
You will learn:
 
·       AI and coaching bots have forced a reckoning on defining coaching
·       Coach education beats training, and it belongs in the field with practice and community
·       Ethics and AI fluency are the differentiators. There are foundations of responsible practice that must be in place before AI fluency can start
 
 
"I think the advent of some of the AI tools that are in the world right now have forced us to say, hey, with these AI tools now calling themselves coach, what is it that they're doing that I also do? And what is it that I do that they are not doing?"
 
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For the episode resources and guest bio, please visit: 
https://www.associationforcoaching.com/page/dl-hub_podcast-channel-AI-ethics-trust-in-coaching-coach-education-definition-ethics

In the sixth episode of our series, AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching, host Smaranda Dochia is joined by Iliana Grosse-Buening, author, speaker, adjunct professor and co-founder of Deeply Human Innovation, who brings a global perspective on the intersection of technology and wellbeing.  She widens the conversation on AI from harm prevention and compliance to a more demanding question: what does good look like? And what should good technology make possible for people's lives, relationships and communities?
 
Through the lens of deeply human innovation, digital wellbeing and human flourishing, Iliana asks whether technology helps people become more capable, connected, curious and able to shape their own lives. She examines the taken-for-grantedness of technology, the slow effects of engagement and attachment economies, and the risks of outsourcing thought, relationship and agency, alongside how organizations can avoid using AI wellbeing tools to individualise problems that are actually created by culture, workload, or power.
 
The conversation also foregrounds participation, community and the voices of young people in shaping technological futures. Regulation and responsible design matter, but people are not powerless while waiting for systems to change - coaches, leaders and organizations can still make choices that nourish relationships, expand agency and keep human and planetary flourishing at the centre of innovation. Iliana closes with an invitation to the upcoming Deeply Human Summit in Paris, which starts with the Global Youth Imagination Lab. Her passion for humanity creates an episode with a powerful call for action, based in hope and a belief in human potential.
 
You will learn:
 
·       How can we create technology that truly help people flourish: become more capable, connected, and able to shape their own lives
·       Organizations must not individualise systemic problems through AI wellbeing tools that may mask issues rooted in culture, workload, or power
·       People don't need to wait for regulation; they can make choices today that protect human connection and flourishing
 
 
"AI is making us have to confront certain things, which, if we courageously address them, I think we would actually end up in a world that is more flourishing."
 
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For the episode resources and guest bio, please visit: 
https://www.associationforcoaching.com/page/dl-hub_podcast-channel-AI-ethics-trust-in-coaching-digital-wellbeing-human-flourishing

In episode 5 of our AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching series, host Smaranda Dochia talks with Lewin Keller, founder of CoachBot.ai, about what happens when you try to build professional coaching into an AI system rather than just bolting a coaching persona onto a chatbot. Lewin's own path into coaching started almost by accident at Google in 2015, and it left him with a simple question: why isn't coaching more accessible to people who aren't executives with corporate budgets? That question eventually led him to build CoachBot.ai.
Lewin is refreshingly honest about the early stumbles. His first users loved the attention but kept asking why they should pay for questions when a general LLM would just hand them advice for free. That feedback pushed him to think harder about what actually makes a coaching bot different: not the model underneath, but the standards, boundaries, and structure built around it, so it knows when to ask and when to guide rather than defaulting to shallow, generic output. He's also candid about the fear running through the profession right now and pushes back on it in an interesting way: the risk isn't AI itself, but the design choices humans make around it, and coaches who stay curious and involved have far more influence over that than those who simply hope it goes away.
What comes through most is a sense of responsibility rather than alarm. Lewin sees it as the profession's job to help people understand the difference between directive and non-directive coaching, what AI companionship actually is, and why so many people are drawn to it in the first place. For him, coaching still has something the world clearly needs, and AI, used thoughtfully, is a way to get more of that into more people's hands.
You will learn:
·       A coaching bot earns that name through the professional standards, guardrails, and structure layered on top of the language model, shaping when it asks questions versus when it offers guidance.
·       Fear should be pointed at design choices human's make, not AI itself. 
·       Educating coaches is a professional duty, not optional extra – helping coaches move from basic AI literacy to AI maturity. 
"This is the first LLM that actually behaves like a coach. Like it's not going directly into giving shallow generic advice. It's actually asking questions. It's setting goals. It's keeping boundaries."
 
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For the episode resources and guest bio, please visit: 
https://www.associationforcoaching.com/page/dl-hub_podcast-channel-AI-ethics-trust-in-coaching-responsible-coachbot-maturity

In episode 4 of our AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching series, host Smaranda Dochia sits down with Dr Malak Sadek, researcher and teaching associate at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Human-Inspired AI, to explore why conversational AI affects us so differently from other technologies. Conversation is already natural to us, so we never have to learn how to "use" a chatbot the way we'd learn a new app, and that ease is exactly what blurs the line between a fluent response and genuine understanding. Malak explains how design choices in tone, voice, and responsiveness shape trust, reinforce gender and racial biases, and lead people to attribute empathy, authority, or even relationship-like qualities to systems that have no lived experience or personal stake in the outcome. The discussion also touches on how repeated interaction with these systems may quietly shape behaviour, beliefs, identity, and the choices people make over time.
 
The conversation then turns to the values built into these systems by default. Malak makes the case that no version of "neutral" really exists: privacy settings, curiosity, playfulness, politeness, cultural assumptions, and commercial incentives are all design decisions that shape how an AI behaves, and many carry Western-centric assumptions that go unexamined. For her, responsible AI needs more than technical safety — it needs meaningful participation, cultural representation, and transparency about the values embedded in the system, so that design strengthens human agency rather than quietly eroding it. She closes with a challenge to coaches and other professionals: rather than resisting these tools, the more useful path is to understand their limitations well enough to guide clients through them.
 
You will learn:
 
·       Fluency isn't understanding – coaches need to help clients see this distinction
·       No system is truly neutral: Every design choice — tone, defaults, privacy settings, cultural framing — embeds values, often Western-centric ones, and coaches should be aware of whose assumptions are shaping the interaction.
 
·       Rather than avoiding AI tools, coaches and professionals are better placed to guide clients by educating them on AI's limitations.
 
 
 
"We have a very strong tendency to give human traits and human characteristics to things that aren't human beings just because they kind of either look human or they remind us of humans somehow. and obviously with LLMs this is on steroids now because they are actually behaving on the surface like, human beings."
 
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For the episode resources and guest bio, please visit: 
https://www.associationforcoaching.com/page/dl-hub_podcast-channel-AI-ethics-trust-in-coaching-conversational-AI-values-chatbots

Most coaches using AI couldn't tell you exactly where their client data actually goes - which platform, which server, whether it's used to train a model. In the third episode of AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching series, host Smaranda Dochia talks with lawyer and AI governance practitioner Amber Foster, and leadership coach, and technology and compliance specialist Colin Cosgrove to unpack what GDPR and the EU AI Act really mean for coaches, coaching providers, and the organisations that hire them. Rather than treating compliance as a box-ticking exercise, Amber and Colin reframe it as the foundation of client trust starting with a deceptively simple question: where is AI actually touching your coaching practice, and what happens to the data once it gets there?   
 
Beyond the legal frameworks, Amber and Colin keep coming back to principles — both the EU AI Act's own principle-based approach, and the personal ethics coaches bring to their work. They push coaches to go beyond "is this compliant?" and ask "does this align with my own values and how I want to show up for clients?" That said, the conversation stays firmly practical: they walk through how to map data flow, what to actually look for in an AI tool's terms and documentation, and why transparency and informed consent can't be a one-off conversation: tools and clients' wishes change, and so should the contracting around them. They also tackle the trickier territory of organisational coaching, where a use case that looks low-risk one-to-one can become high-risk the moment it sits inside an HR system with multiple stakeholders.
 
This episode is essential listening for any coach, L&D professional, or organisational leader using AI in their practice. Where inaction will put you at risk, this episode will provide the information you need to get started to ensure both you and your clients are protected, and ethical.
 
You will learn
 
·       There are two sets of principles and one question: the EU AI Act is principle-based, and so is good coaching; the real test is whether your AI use lines up with both?
·       GDPR and the EU AI Act set legal minimums; genuine trust with clients requires transparency and consent that go further.
·       Context changes risk: a coaching use case that's low risk individually can become high-risk once it operates inside an organisational or HR system.
 
"As soon as you start to receive data about people, that's when you need to switch on and start to think about this." 
 
Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave us a review! Your feedback helps us bring you more valuable content.
 
For the episode resources and guest bio, please visit: 
https://www.associationforcoaching.com/page/dl-hub_podcast-channel-AI-ethics-trust-in-coaching-legislation-gdpr-eu-ai-act-governance