Exploring Human Coach Distinctiveness in an Age of AI: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Roles of Values

Abstract

Objective: This study examined how professional coaches understand the role of values in their practice and why they see these as central to what human coaches offer compared with AI coaching agents. Method: Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used with semi-structured interviews with 13 experienced professional coaches. Results: Four group experiential themes were identified: values as the ethical and professional foundation of coaching practice, values as a purposive tool for client development, the reflexive and regulated coach and values as a distinctly human relational practice. Participants described values as central to coaching practice rather than one tool among many. They also linked embodied self-regulation, multimodal alignment and relational trust more strongly with human coaches than with AI coaching. Conclusions: The findings deepen understanding of values in coaching and of what coaches see as distinctively human, with implications for coach training, professional supervision and the responsible use of AI in professional coaching.