REUPLOAD: AI and Coaching Part 1

Apologies for mistake in the previous upload. 

As AI continues to reshape how we work, it is also beginning to influence how we think, decide, and lead.

In our recent Coaching Café, it was no surprise that we identified AI as one of the most significant trends shaping coaching and leadership conversations in 2026. The question is no longer “Is AI relevant?”—it’s “What should we, as coaches and leaders, be paying attention to?”

AI is changing how information is accessed, how decisions are made, and how quickly solutions can be generated. At the same time, it raises important questions about thinking, judgment, learning, and human capability.

This is where coaching becomes even more important.

Coaching helps individuals move beyond quick answers to deeper thinking. It supports reflection, challenges assumptions, and ensures that AI enhances—rather than replaces—human capability.

Join Natalie and expert panelist Lu Ngo, Head of Digital Skills Programs, Australian Institute of Management (AIM) as we kick off a new series of the Coaching Café and explore what AI means for coaching practice and leadership.

You’ll walk away with:

✔️ A clear understanding of how AI is influencing coaching and leadership conversations 

✔️ What coaches and leaders should be focusing on in an AI-enabled workplace 

✔️ The risks of over-reliance on AI—and how coaching mitigates them 

✔️ Practical ways to integrate AI awareness into your coaching conversations

Transcripts can be found here: 

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Transcript

0:00

[Music] Well, it's a very good morning, a good afternoon, and a good evening to some of you who are dialing into the coaching cafe either live or on your favorite streaming service. Welcome, my name is Dr. Natalie Ashdown from OpenDawcoaching and IECL. And today we are talking about AI in coaching. What should we be focusing on? And for those that know me, I get very excited and I talk too fast when we have a guest speaker, but I don't apologize because I'm very excited today to welcome to the Lion Loon Young, our Head of Digital Skills Program for the With The Australian Institute of Management. Welcome to the Lion Loo. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Nat. Well, as always, we acknowledge your traditional owners, the custodians and the lands in which we all meet today, their continuing connection to the lands and waters of the communities of Australia and the lands from all around the world where you might be joining us. We have Canada, Malaysia, New York, all around the world, all around Australia. You're joining us live, Tokyo's just joined us. So we repay our respects to them, elders past, present and emerging, and elders from indigenous communities from all around the world. Welcome to you all. Our agenda today, we have an action-packed agenda. We have so much to discuss and I need to get through the introductions so we can just focus on leveraging all the experience that you have, Lou. So we're going to be talking about today about how AI is influencing coaching and leadership conversations. What coaches and leaders should be focusing on when we talk about an AI enabled workplace? We want to give you some practical ideas in terms of integrating AI into our coaching conversations. So for those of you that are new to the coaching cafe, we say welcome. We're all about creating a shared, learning experience, having thought, provoking conversations, and ICF-CCEs, the continuing coach education units are available at the end of the session if you are listening to this live. To all our regulars, welcome back whether you're listening to this live and we know that the podcast is getting so many downloads, it's so exciting. Thank you for joining us as a regular. We are always really keen that you interact with us via the chat box, via the chat. And for this conversation in particular, perhaps you might like to hit up the chat there and tell us what are you using AI for in your coaching practice? So feel free to interact in the chat box and tell us that. So what are you using AI for in your coaching or your coaching practice? And we're also interested in understanding because this will be a two-part series actually, this series and we're having a conversation next week as well. So because we can discuss this over two parts, we're interested in what are you struggling with most when it comes to integrating AI into your coaching or into your coaching practice. So what are you using it for? What are you struggling with? It will be good to hear from you. We'll pick up that conversation. So we know that AI is being used in coaching in a number of different ways. For content writing, for virtual coaching assistants, some sophisticated data analysis, for scenario simulations and of course for self-coaching and goal attainment. So we have a slide there if you listen to the podcast, pick that up on our blog, but it is all about using AI at the moment for content writing, drafts, frameworks, resources, coaching materials, things like that. There is quite a bit of virtual coaching assistant going on. AI has been used in coaching and coaching practices for a long time in sophisticated data analysis. So we've been able to collect statistics and feedback, etc and analyse that. More and more, we're seeing AI being used in scenarios. So anyone that caught our coaching cafes last year, this time last year, you would have actually seen me show you how the different AI chats are working with the ICF, how we're using AI chat bots to investigate our coaching transcripts with permission of course and looking at how our transcripts relate to the ICF core competencies. And long term listeners will know that I actually caught chat GPT out by saying don't give me suggestions, coach me and then it started giving me suggestions. So I'm very interested in how the AI has evolved over the past year as well. We'll be looking more into that. Of course, self coaching and goal attainment, there's apps out there that are doing self coaching and goal attainment and the International Coach Federation has put a lot of work and effort into the research around this. So it's definitely helping. And it's definitely coming into the coaching industry more and more, even the IECL which we're a part of now has a new product which is introducing AI assisted coaching as well. So I'm giving you all this as background. We also looked up the 2025 global coaching study, the report that was released last year. And Lou, this is where I'm interested in your opinions. Let's me stop talking and get into hearing from the experts. You know, you are ahead of digital skills programs for aim. So I want to stop talking and get your input. The study said that 47% of coaches are now using digital coaching platforms, but the use is mostly in virtual one-on-one coaching sessions or scheduling and managing. So they're the two kind of uses. In terms of adapting to technology, the report said only 19% of coaches have actually invested in new technology. It is set to increase to 27% over the next couple of years. And one third of or 37% of coaches indicated, this is the interesting one to me, 37% of coaches indicated that adapting to technology and digital tools is a major concern, which is why you're on the line, Lou. So can I throw now to a question to you? And I'm thinking when you see those statistics for our coaching industry and you think about the industries that you've been exposed to, what's your opinion in terms of how our industry is placed? And I'll stop the take the slides down so we can really focus on you as well. So what are you thinking there, Lou? Thanks, Matt. I guess before I answer the question, I should probably set the scene around what I do so that my answer is in context because I'm by no means an AI expert. I'm not a digital skills expert, but what I am an expert in is training for organizations and what they need. And so this spans across lots of industries. And we work with all sorts of industries you can think of in our open programs, in our close cohorts, in our tailor solution. So we really understand what the industries are struggling with and we do a lot of research in this space to be able to introduce courses as well. So when I look at the statistics of the coaching industry, that was particularly interesting to me because I remember there was a time when I thought, you know, callently or so innovative. And I'm sure people on the line are probably going to agree with that. And then now we have advanced AI tools that take that to the next level. So I see that the industry is really adopting that digitizing access and you know, streamlining admin and you know, helping with the really basic foundation work. What I see potential for is, you know, the fact that you can take this to the next level through augmenting your coaching and your practice. And what do I mean by augmenting? That is probably an interesting one because when it comes to things like, okay, let's cut down admin time. Everyone has started to do that, you know, since AI came out and like I see a lot of our audience here do use AI for admin, help with certain, you know, smaller task that they probably don't have a lot of time for. Whereas augmenting is actually when you break it down into your, you know, in your workflow, I'm not going to assume that I know everything that a coach does, but you know, having been coach myself, I could imagine you need to prepare. You need to, you know, on board your clients, you need to then analyze the client's needs and whether at measure progress and also have some analytics to be able to generate the learning that they might go through. So all of that can actually be augmented by AI. It's not an individual, you know, task in the workflow per se, but when you think about that in the big picture, a lot of that can change when you know what AI can do. But, you know, I also think it is a challenge because if you don't really know what AI can do, it's really hard to then op-man your practice and change all of the old processes in the way that you've approached coaching. And you know, that's just a thought starter. This is not even, you know, the answer to everything, right? Yeah, I, you have right, because as soon as you say that, augment, I'm like, okay, so how do I augment high coaching practice? And then it is a case if you don't know what you don't know. So, that's where we'll talk, you know, at the end of our session about how aim is actually filling that gap. And I must apologise to you, Lutu. Am I, am I haste to get into our conversation because I'm so excited. I forgot to introduce you, prop, please. So, you're going ahead and introducing yourself there. Absolutely. Yeah, and people are saying that here on the chat that they're creating a standard for powerful questions. And using AI to think about thought-provoking questions for onboarding documents, emails, admin, scripts and scenarios for targeted coaching and demos. So, to even develop coaching practices. So, there is, you know, in our community just here online quite a lot going on. Yeah. Which is what you're saying. That's the augmented idea, isn't it? Yeah, it's, it's to take it to the next level. I see that there's a lot of potential in what everyone has started to do. And there's a lot that, a lot more that you can do, for example, when you think about a journey of a client, may actually be embedded throughout the process, right? And it doesn't just help the client, it helps yourself. But it also, it starts with this one big question, how are you storing all this data, right? Because I would imagine coaches run their own businesses or, you know, some of them might be sole traders. They work by themselves. So, the way that you store your data would really then help you to either think about how you can, you know, how you can embed AI in that or you might have to rebuild to actually enable that to happen because a lot of the work that used to happen years ago would be manual, right? I've gone through coaching myself. So, I sort of, I sort of see that, oh, it's quite manual. Like every time, like before you have a coaching session, you get an email or you do some quiz, or, you know, like even in the coaching, you'll talk to your coach. They will document the insights. And then next time, how do you measure that? Right? I think that's kind of the interesting bit. And also keeping the conversation going outside of the coaching session, right? Which is why now there are a lot of technologies that can help you with the virtual coaching and, you know, like to help your clients when you're not around. But obviously, you know, that, there are levels of that. There are tools that help on a surface level, you know, where it's just, okay, temporary solution. There are tools where you can actually embed your own set of coaching questions or scenarios or things that you really want to highlight to your own client. And also, you know, how do you measure progress? Right? I would imagine there are certain ways you need to capture the data. How do you go about doing that? And that would enable you to augment your coaching because you don't have to worry about, oh, you know, okay, my clients been with me for three months, six months. I need to create this checkpoint manually. Actually, you know, if I have this in my coaching practice and it's in my infrastructure of, you know, whatever I'm using as a coach, like I put that hat up and, you know, start to embed AI throughout, but it depends on the workflow of how each of you are going about your coaching or each organization, even, you know, like IECL and OpenDore, for example, right? Like I'm sure you've started to have conversations about it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, as you're speaking, I feel like I just need to stop and take notes and I also, I also feel like we're recording this conversation. So we're going to be able to listen back to it. There's so much you've added to our conversation already. Couple of things that are coming up for me. One is the storage of the data. So we'll have to talk about that next week when it comes to, to, as well, which we will. But the other thing is, is that really stood out. And I think that's where your expertise comes into it because you are highly attuned to the, the journey that we're taking people on. And you said that we could consider the journey that we're taking our clients on and where AI is embedded. And you mentioned the follow up. And that is, that is one thing that coaches and we, we, we, we experience even in workshops. How do we, how do we get that embedding of our workshops or our coaching workshops and, and what more can we do there? So it's quite provoking what you've said there to, to really take that perspective. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, there, there's no shortage of tools nowadays. So, you know, the, the question that I think we really need to ask is, what's the goal? You know, because each coach would have their own practice and, and there are certain things in your workflow that you might want to improve. There are certain outcomes for your own clients that you want to get. But not all tools have the same way of delivering that outcome and not all tools work with you, right? And I give this really silly and funny example. I have a PT, technically a coach, yes. And so, you know, when, when I think about that, they, the, the way that they work, it's very manual. Obviously, very different from your work. But, you know, it just in the sense of the journey, I can imagine, I'll give you an example. So it's a bit clearer. The onboarding, very manual, my progress, I don't know how that is measured. And then, you know, the, even the exercises in between. So it's similar to coaching in the sense that you don't just have the sessions and go home, right? You have the sessions and you have exercises in between. But then, do you check and how do you check that they have actually done that? How do you generate these tailored exercises for them in between? So that it actually helps with your clients journey to achieve that goal. Because that is the success measurement of a coach, I would say, right? Your client progresses through all the stages, do all the things they need to do and attain the goals that they want to achieve. So when I think about that, I have oftentimes played the other role of reminding my coach, can you generate exercises for me? You know, sometimes I'm lazy, I don't do that. But you're on certain weeks, I'm like, oh, I don't have exercises. I do outside of my PT session. So you know, outside of the coaching sessions that your clients have, what else are you doing? What else is the client doing? How do you generate that? In a way that is really efficient and effective for both of yourself and the client? Because I would imagine in the conversation, some people in the chat have actually shared that they develop scripts or action steps and things to follow up after each session. But oftentimes, you probably spend a lot of time yourself developing this. The way that AI can help you in augment your coaching is that it's sort of like a bank of data and information, depending on your coaching practice, your client's information, to then tailor and generate all of that weekly or monthly or, you know, quarterly or whatever it might be for your scenario. But I think it depends on, and I know we'll talk about data next week, but it depends on the data you capture and it depends on, it's sort of like the large language model that, you know, often time people, when people hear about AI, they hear about it. What kind of large language model are you using that for? So there's just a lot to consider. And again, I'm no expert to tell you what exactly to use. And I won't go, I won't even go there. I think it's more around, this is an opportunity to learn about what you can actually do. And there's a lot you can do, right? If I can imagine how a PT practice can be improved, then coaching would be similar in that sense because there is a client journey. You're listening to the Open Door Coaching Coaching Cafe podcast. And for more information on programs run by Open Door Coaching, head to our website at opendoorcoaching.com.au. Now back to the podcast. Yeah, absolutely. And as you say, that client journey extends to follow-ups and it extends to measurements. And so what else can we do around that? And that's getting quite a few thumbs up in the chats there too. Thank you. So, there's two ways that we can consider this conversation. One is ourselves in coaching practice and how we can improve our coaching practice. And I just want to point out to those people in the line, if you're a manager in the workplace and you're coaching people, that conversation is still relevant. We're talking about our coaching practice and how we can improve the way that we deliver services to clients. So that's one lens that we can take it from. The other lens I'm thinking about is how is AI influencing coaching and leadership conversations? Because this is what I'm finding more in the executive coaching that I'm doing. It's almost like we need to be more in tune with what's happening with our clients. So it's what's happening within the conversation. So there's one lens. Does that make sense? One lens is the practice what we're doing. Yeah. Absolutely. But the other is what do we need to be aware of in terms of the conversations we're having as well? What are you thinking about that, Lou? Yeah, I mean, that's a great point because we work with people that you might coach, right? That we will, your potential, your existing clients in training and oftentimes, obviously we do work with individual contributors, up to mid managers and then we also work with senior managers, up to execs. And oftentimes when it comes to mid managers, the struggle would be, for example, in this age when they're introducing AI, how do you manage that with their team? Oftentimes, the question would go back to, what is the organization's AI strategy? Is it causing fears? And if managers are going about coaching their teams, this often comes up, right? Oh, will I have a job tomorrow? You know, like, what is AI going to do? Like, how is it going to impact my career? This I have actually found, because I do coach young people and mentor them. And so I do find that, obviously, not as the extent that you and professional coaches do, but in the sense that I try to help and when I try to help, I try to understand and see from what they cannot see. Have you considered what AI can do to enhance your work? Have you considered what the career opportunities could be if you really understand the potential of AI? So that's, you know, for the young professionals that just entered the workplace. But then for, you know, senior leaders, execs, it's a different conversation. If you're coaching them, they might oftentimes, probably what kept it up at night is that, you know, how do I increase revenue? How do I make sure my organization stays competitive in this day and age? In this market, that's really tough. That, you know, has AI everywhere and I don't know what to do with it. So, you know, if we look at it from that lens, then obviously coaches are not AI specialists. I'll just say that. But what coaches can really help with is to bring them understandings of what they can do through asking them really good questions. And the way that coaches can ask good questions is through learning about what's possible and what they need to consider, right? Because especially in executive coaching and when you coach senior leaders, they make decisions that impact a lot of people. They make decisions that impact lots of workflows. So, what are the considerations, right? A very, you have simple example could be, you know, you've got a client who is a senior manager or an exec and comes to you and say, I'm not sure about what to do about my workforce planning. I'm really struggling because of AI. And we do have an AI strategy, but I'm not sure what that means for my workforce planning. And you know, they might need support to go through that process. And so if the coaches like yourselves don't have the foundational, you know, the same level of understanding of what is needed, then it's really hard, right? So, I think we all need to bring ourselves up to speed to have these conversations because we're not the one making the decisions. We're not the one driving the decision, but we are the ones, you know, giving them the insights, asking them really good questions that they can come to the conclusion themselves. Right? So, it's, you know, oftentimes questions that can be really simple. What is your organization's AI strategy? Do you have one? I guess organization have one. Has it been communicated to the wider organization, you know, to exact in people and in human resources they might sort of start thinking what level of information do I communicate, where are we going with our, you know, workforce planning to make sure I don't cause panic or, you know, to make sure that I can build capability in my people through either training, coaching or further education. So, you know, there are lots of things to consider, lots of new roles are being created and all these senior leaders who are working with coaches might go to the coaches for that, right? They might want some perspective or, you know, they might want things to help them to be able to consider, "Okay, what am I going to go back to work tomorrow and start doing?" And start looking at. There's so much in what you've said, Lou, as I said, I'm going to listen back to this recording because you're absolutely right and I, and I'm thinking about the conversations that I have been having. And, you know, we started out by saying that we're not the experts here, but what we are really good at is asking those thought-provoking questions, powerful questions that drive the awareness and drive the critical thinking that's needed and the judgment when it comes to decision-making. And what I'm hearing from what you're saying is that the more we're informed about what's happening, we don't have to be an expert, we're not making suggestions or anything because that's not coaching, but the more that we're informed, then that can actually potentially drive the power of our questions as well. So, I'm not exactly sure how that shows up because I'm obviously being led by the coach me, but I'm thinking about that and the other thing that is, as it is you say, fears. I'm like, I actually have that fear. I feel like I might be missing out or I'm not keeping up. Well, you know, that's why I bring you on the line, Lou, because you can help me before that. So, I think I love it how we've been really real here that there's, you know, there is a lot of fear going on in our workplaces. And I'm feeling that actually with the clients that we're coaching. Yeah, I would imagine, you know, especially given the economic climate and what's happening in the world and all sorts of things that, you know, one conversation cannot cover. But yeah, I think, you know, there's just so much that goes into this. And I suppose I remember our conversation the other day, Matt, when we were discussing this topic and there's just so much that can be done. And we brought it back to, what do we need to know? And like you said earlier as well, right? Like, what exactly do we need to know to be able to bring out and create those really good questions? And I know some people in our audience actually use the help of AI to formulate those questions, right? But remember, AI is trained by large language models. They have cut-off dates, which means they're not always up to date. And they can process information extremely fast, but that doesn't mean it comes without things like AI slop. So if you just take whatever AI gives you and bring it to, you know, whether your collaboration, your client, your workplace, chances are there's a very strong lack of judgment in there. So you know, you can use AI as a thought partner, right? And, you know, for example, things like Fio, you know, how can I ask questions to help with this? But ultimately, it is about the coaches. Ultimately, you are the only one that can see what is actually happening with the human. So while AI can help with things like, you know, recommending offline exercises, the coaching happens with the people, right? So that it's never going to change. Or, you know, things like, you know, like short coaching online, outside of the in-person sessions, that can support the journey, but it will never replace what the work that you do. And, you know, I think it's also a very important point that in this age of AI, and there's that when there are a lot of issues with AI slop or, you know, information that's just, you just need to fact check, right? What I think is really important for the coaches is actually, first of all, educate themselves about what AI can and cannot do to, you know, to consider what can and cannot augment your practice. And second of all, always have something, pick an anchor where you never use AI for, right? AI can really help. You know, I create courses with my team to teach people about it. Do I love it? I have a, I have a love-hate relationship with it sometimes, right? Because of this, because of the fact that I'm still very much human, and I just love how much and humans can do. And the human potential we can unlock through coaching is so important, and so there are certain tasks that I would recommend. You can pick at least one or maybe three or maybe one or four times, and never use AI. So, you always have that human adjustment in the loop, so you never go into the situation there. You know, you're looking at AI output and then you kind of like, oh, I really can't do that. That kind of looks good. Okay, we can go with that, right? So, it will never come to that situation because you already have that human adjustment and that continuous loop of learning. I love that, we've given a so many great things to think about and challenging us to be aware of the increased awareness, and that last political tip you've given, I love that as well. You mentioned that two in a couple days ago, I'd be really thinking about that, are we not going to use AI really make it the limit, we know, we know, we need AI for whatever purpose. And then as you say, coming back to what are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to achieve? We've expected the classic questions, first of all, it's because in terms of what we're trying to achieve with our cells, with our own awareness, without trying to improve the practice, in coaching and in coaching others. So, I can't believe our conversation has been, we are right from time. So, I want to say, there's 30 seconds for everyone, because we can do it in the pilot, I'm not sure. Oh, we have access to the AI, which is the AI, so it's for the students and responsible AI leadership programs as well. These are courses that you have designed, so I want to tell people that they can use the QR code they just scan, and I am evolving these programs, I can't wait to do them. And for those who do that are interested, I am already informed that we can actually offer 20% discount on the courses until the 26th of April. So, if you email support@opendorcoaching.com.au and you mention this coaching cafe, then we can give you that 20% discount. So, there's a little practical thing, we can get ourselves educated and learn more through those courses as well. We are going to come back next week and talk more about ethics and just continue our conversation. I just want to thank you so much for opening up our conversation and opening up our thinking, and I can't wait to catch up at our next session. Fantastic, thanks, Nat, and hopefully these training courses will really help our audience to gain that understanding, to formulate really great coaching questions. I'm sure they will. Thank you so much. We'll say as always, goodbye for now, everybody, and enjoy your coaching. Thanks for listening to this episode of the coaching cafe podcast. You can watch the full video of this podcast and on our website. I'll put a link in the show in the description. We'll see you at the next coaching cafe.[Music]