Coaching Voices: The Association for Coaching Podcast

Across workplaces, AI tools are being introduced at remarkable speed. Licenses are being purchased, productivity gains are anticipated, and employees are being encouraged to experiment. But access to AI is not the same as knowing how to work with it well. In episode 8 of our AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching series, host Smaranda Dochia sits down with James Varnham, who brings 26 years of experience in learning, workforce development, and AI adoption, to unpack what's actually happening inside organizations as AI moves from experimentation to daily practice. They dig into the gap between leadership ambition and employee readiness, the rise of shadow AI and the data security risks it creates, and why generic, one-size-fits-all training rarely builds the kind of AI literacy organizations need.
 
The conversation centres on a key distinction: knowing how to use AI is not the same as knowing how to collaborate with it. True AI literacy means understanding when AI adds value, how to steer and question its output, and where human critical thinking has to stay firmly in the driver's seat. James and Smaranda also explore the growing role of coaching in this shift—not as a way to help people feel better about AI, but as a space to think clearly about what to delegate, what to protect, and how to hold onto judgment, agency, and a sense of human worth as the technology evolves around them. They also turn to the question of employee wellbeing, including how AI adoption can quietly erode confidence when people feel uncertain about what's expected of them or fear being left behind.
James makes a pointed case for AI coaching tools too: their scalability makes coaching more affordable and able to reach far more people than human coaching alone ever could. But he's equally clear about their limits—organizations and individuals both need to learn where an AI coach's usefulness ends and where a human coach needs to step in. Ultimately, this episode reframes what "successful" AI adoption should even mean. Rather than measuring it by how much AI gets used, James and Smaranda suggest the better measure is what happens to human capability because of that use—whether people are growing sharper and more confident, or quietly ceding judgment to the machine.
 
You will learn:
 
·       What real AI literacy means – understanding that using AI isn't the same as collaborating with it.
·       Adoption of AI in organizations is outpacing readiness and wellbeing needs attention too. James shares tips on how to bring AI into a workplace with a reminder that AI will involve continuous learning.
·       AI coaches make support more affordable and accessible at scale but knowing when to hand off from an AI coach to a human one is essential.
   
"We're still very, very immature when it comes down to, as I said, organizational adoption of AI."
 
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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-organizations-workplace-AI-literacy

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."
 
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-conversational-AI-values-chatbots