314: AI Coaching: What Does the Evidence Actually Tell Us? With Professor Nicky Terblanche
Coaching Voices: The Association for Coaching PodcastShow Notes
AI coaching is moving fast, but the evidence hasn't quite caught up with the excitement. In episode 9 of our AI, Ethics and Trust in Coaching series, host Smaranda Dochia sits down with Professor Nicky Terblanche, Professor in Leadership Coaching at Stellenbosch University Business School in Cape Town, South Africa, where he leads the master's and PhD programmes in leadership coaching. Nicky began his career in electronic and software engineering before moving into coaching and applied psychology and has been researching AI coaching since well before generative AI arrived on the scene.
The conversation centres on a key distinction: 'AI in coaching' versus 'AI coaching' itself, and why the field still needs clearer definitions and professional boundaries. Nicky brings the research into focus, sharing findings that AI coaching can be effective for goal attainment, but has yet to show the same results when it comes to areas like stress, wellbeing, and resilience: the deeper developmental terrain where skilled human coaches still lead. They also explore whether AI should even aspire to imitate a human coach, why coaching methodology matters when evaluating a platform, cultural bias in AI coaching tools, and how AI might ultimately raise the bar for human coaching rather than simply replace it.
Throughout, one message keeps returning: keep an open mind, but remain critical and ask for evidence. Nicky's research suggests a more nuanced picture than either the hype or the anxiety around AI coaching would have us believe - AI coaching can already support outcomes like goal attainment and offers real value through its scale, cost, and accessibility, reaching people who might otherwise have no access to coaching at all. But when it comes to deeper transformation, human coaching still holds its ground. Nicky's closing challenge lingers too: perhaps we're worrying too much about AI replacing coaches, and not enough about what it means to outsource our thinking to technology over time.
You will learn:
· 'AI in coaching' and 'AI coaching' aren't the same thing. The field still lacks clear definitions and professional boundaries, and getting this distinction right matters for standards and accreditation. · AI coaching if far off from replacing human coaches but it does have value in it's scalability and reach. · The real risk may not be replacement - it's outsourcing thinking: what happens to our critical thinking and capability when we lean too heavily on technology to do it for us.
"AI coaching is not competing with human coaching, but it can be incredibly scalable and helpful to millions of people who would never otherwise have any coaches."
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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-AI-coaching-research-service
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