Using AI around coaching sessions

What recording changes in a coaching conversation

There are good reasons to consider it and substantial reasons to think carefully.

A recording can provide material for your development and reduce the need to take notes. It may allow you to revisit something you missed or examine a pattern across sessions.

It also creates a record of a conversation that a client may value precisely because it feels private. Agreement to recording does not, by itself, tell you how being recorded affects what either of you says.

In our course discussions, coaches have described different experiences. Some find recording helps their attention. Others are concerned about what it does to the space they are offering.

Start with the purpose. What would recording enable? Does the client want that? Could you achieve the purpose another way?

Consider the relationship and the handling of the resulting information together. A decision to record should make sense on both grounds.

Whose interpretation goes into your client’s summary?

Ask what the summary is intended to do.

Giving a client a record of their own thinking may help them revisit an insight or remember something they chose to try. But selecting and presenting the important points can also place the coach in charge of deciding what the session meant.

This was a live disagreement in the course. It is worth thinking through rather than treating a summary as an automatic additional benefit.

You might invite the client to identify their own takeaways, agree together what would be useful to capture, or keep a transcript solely for your development where that use has been appropriately arranged.

If you do send a summary, review it carefully. Distinguish what was said from the model’s interpretation, and check that actions were actually agreed.

Rehearsing a difficult coaching moment

Use a fictional coaching exchange to explore interventions before trying them in practice. A client who repeatedly asks for advice, for example, can give you a way to examine when you offer something and when you stay with inquiry.

Pay attention to the simulation’s limits. A model generates the client’s responses; a smooth exchange does not show how a real person, with their own history and relationship with you, would respond.

Rehearsal can expand the options you consider. It does not establish competence in a technique you have not learned.

AI support between sessions

An AI companion needs a clear purpose in this client’s work and an approach to handling its limits.

The attraction is understandable: continuity between sessions, somewhere to explore a question, and access to material gathered during the engagement. Some participants have been interested in developing that offer. Others have decided it does not fit their clients or their understanding of coaching.

Consider the client’s interest and ability to question the output, what information the tool would contain, and what happens if a conversation becomes unhelpful or concerning. Be clear about whether you can see those conversations and what support you are offering.

A useful preparation tool for you does not automatically make a useful independent tool for your client. Evaluate each purpose separately.

(Before using client material, see AI, confidentiality and your clients’ trust.)