#180 AI Is Beyond the Known - but it cannot take us there

The EMCC Global Annual Conference in Zagreb (May 2026) invited attendees from 38 countries to go beyond the known: to back away from coaching as performing and simply be; to embrace a continuous journey of becoming, walking through a liminal space and embodying change; and to take responsibility for having an impact on the systems and people we serve.

The experience was magical – not just the learning and reflecting, but the connection with others. Meeting people I know well for the first time in real life, and people I did not know so well, or at all, whom I now consider colleagues. I felt like I’d found ‘my people’. My LinkedIn feed is awash with reflections from the conference, and part of me resists adding to the melee. However, ideas are swirling around my being, and I feel the need to pull them out from within and write them down. I also had the privilege of attending the Oxford Brookes University Annual International Supervision Conference last week, too, so here are some random musings from my conference experiences last week. I don’t know where this will go, but perhaps that is the point…

There was much talk of AI in coaching/supervision at both conferences. AI cannot take us beyond the known. We explored what it means to be human. To shift subtly from doing coaching to being a coach:

1.      Before coaching: What are your intentions going into coaching?

2.      During coaching: How will you be present and notice everything?

3.      After coaching: What is the impact on you, your coachee and the world?

And to hold our humanity as context for the work. It strikes me that our virtues give us permission to coach. As long as these virtues sufficiently intersect with professional standards, then we’ll be ok. If not, then perhaps we need to give ourselves permission to influence professional standards!

More and more, I am realising that coaching and supervision are acts of love. Tough love, sometimes. Tough on the issue, gentle on the person. Our job is to mobilise the whole of our client’s energy. I refer to this energy in four parts – Heart, Mind, Body and Soul. That is, emotional, cognitive, somatic, and creative energy. To find our truth, we are invited to forget all we know, to empty our cup. To the best of my ability, I empty myself before coaching. This helps me connect with being a coach rather than doing coaching. The client’s desire, my stillness and a belief that the client already knows represent my truth. What is ours to do in coaching/supervision then becomes our co-created truth.

Can we co-create truth when working in collaboration with AI? AI can only ever look backwards. It has access (in principle) to the whole of human knowledge. Cognitively, at least, that is is processes data logically, resulting in the most probable truth as output. But it can neither imagine the future with any humanity, nor access the other elements of human energy (emotional, somatic, creative). It can simulate them, but it cannot be. Also, it rushes to a solution, prematurely offering ‘insights’ without reflection. AI cannot engage in reflective practice. It can spot what is happening in a conversation. Perhaps we can find a way to allow it to do the heavy lifting – the data analysis – but never the interpretation. If we outsource our critical thinking, then we are doomed to lose the capability to do it for ourselves.

And yet, we must engage with AI in coaching. If our role is to help people navigate their identity crisis as they learn to collaborate with AI, then coaches must be at the forefront of understanding the benefits and limitations of collaborating with AI, ethically and as a developmental tool. We wouldn’t outsource this transition to a bot. Similarly, purely human coaching might represent a partial solution. Is AI a tool, or is it our equal partner? This is a philosophical question of fundamental importance.

Perhaps you are already using AI in your coaching practice. Perhaps you are thinking about it. Perhaps you are ignoring it, instead doubling down on what remains uniquely human in your coaching practice.

AI is beyond the known, yet it cannot take us beyond the known. I believe we must explore these challenges in supervision. Unlike AI, I don't claim to have the answers. But we can co-create our truth together.

In conclusion: it is not the time for a conclusion. In the words of American comic Steven Wright, ‘a conclusion is the place where you tired of thinking’. I’m not tired of thinking about AI in coaching. I’m only just getting started.