Coaching & AI Glossary.
The language of AI in coaching, defined for coaches. No jargon. No engineering speak. Just what you need to know.
Coach-Supervised AI
Coach-Supervised AI
The AI proposes. You decide. Your client receives only what you have approved. Coach-supervised AI keeps your professional judgment at the centre of the process. You review, edit, and approve every AI output before it reaches your client. The AI supports your coaching. It never replaces it.
See how it worksCoaching Twin
Your private AI layer, trained on your actual sessions with a specific client. It learns your language, your frameworks, your approach. Over time, your coaching twin delivers between-session support that sounds like you. Nothing it generates reaches your client without your approval.
Learn more about your coaching twinHuman in the Loop
You review and approve every AI output before it reaches your client. That is what “human in the loop” means. In coach-supervised AI, you are always the final filter. Nothing goes out without your action.
AI Coaching(what CoachNova is not)
A model where AI replaces the human coach entirely, typically through a chatbot. The client interacts with the AI directly, without a coach reviewing or approving anything. CoachNova does not use this model. You stay in control. The AI stays in the background.
Transparency
Your clients know AI is part of the process. Transparency is non-negotiable. They give informed consent before sessions are recorded, understand what data is captured, and know that between-session support is AI-generated and approved by you.
Hybrid Coaching Model
You lead the sessions. AI extends your presence in between through reflection prompts, smart nudges, and continuity support. Unlike pure AI coaching, hybrid models keep you at the centre. Unlike traditional coaching alone, they fill the gap between sessions where behaviour change often stalls.
Human vs AI Coaching
A question many coaches are asking. Research from Stanford shows AI can match human coaches on goal-oriented outcomes, but falls short on empathy and wellbeing. Coach-supervised AI sidesteps this debate entirely. You handle the relationship, the empathy, the judgment. The AI handles continuity, pattern recognition, and between-session support. They complement each other.
CoachNova Features
Session Intelligence
Not a transcript. Coaching intelligence. After each session, CoachNova generates a summary of key themes, client commitments, emotional patterns, and reflection opportunities. Designed for your next session and your professional follow-up.
Session Prep Briefalso: preparation brief
Two minutes to read. Full context for your next session. Before each session, you receive a summary of where your client is, what they committed to last time, what themes are emerging, and suggested areas to explore. You walk in prepared, even if weeks have passed.
Smart Nudges
AI-generated check-ins and progress reminders sent to your clients between sessions. Contextual to what they actually discussed and committed to. You review and approve every nudge before it is delivered. Nothing goes out without your action.
Reflection Prompts
Questions designed to deepen your client’s thinking between sessions. Generated by AI from actual session content, reviewed by you, and tailored to your client’s goals. They sound like you because they are grounded in your methodology.
Between-Session Support
Reflection prompts, smart nudges, and resources connected to what actually happened in the session. Your client receives structured support between sessions. You review and approve everything before it reaches them. Research shows between-session engagement is one of the strongest predictors of sustained improvement.
See what clients experienceAI Notetakeralso: private notetaker
Joins your Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet session as a participant. Captures session content with client consent. Generates coaching-specific insights. Unlike generic meeting transcription tools, an AI notetaker built for coaching produces session intelligence: themes, commitments, emotional patterns, and reflection opportunities. Your client does not need to install anything.
Session Transcription vs Session Intelligence
Session transcription is a word-for-word written record of what was said. Session intelligence is something different: it captures the coaching-specific meaning of a session. Themes, commitments, emotional shifts, reflection opportunities. Most coaches do not need a transcript. They need to know what matters for the next session and what support the client needs in between. CoachNova generates session intelligence, not transcripts.
Coaching Extension
A model that lets clients keep access to their coach’s coaching twin after a formal coaching engagement ends. The coach sets the price and stays in the background as the human behind it. It preserves the developmental thread and creates recurring revenue without additional coaching hours.
See extension pricingDigital Twin Access
Everything from your coaching sessions, your session notes, your messaging interactions, your transcriptions, and your coach’s methodology, made available as a personalised AI you can continue to interact with. Between sessions or after the engagement ends, you can keep deepening your coaching journey. Your coach receives a weekly report on themes and can set boundaries on what the AI will and will not discuss. Self-service, always available, and grounded in your actual coaching. It means the value of your sessions lasts far longer than the sessions themselves.
Guided Extension
Everything included in Digital Twin Access, plus direct async messaging with your coach. Your coach receives your messages, reviews them, and responds personally. It is the same between-session messaging you had during your engagement, continued after it ends. This comes at a slightly higher price because your coach allocates time to review and respond. For clients who want the full coaching twin and the connection to their coach.
Weekly Rapport
A short report you receive when a client has an extension subscription. It shows what themes they are exploring, which sessions they are revisiting, and what commitments they are reflecting on. Quick to review, but valuable. You might spot patterns worth bringing into a follow-up session. It keeps you in the loop and makes it easy to re-engage clients at the right moment. A retention opportunity built into the way the product works.
Coaching Practice
Coaching Methodology
What makes your work distinctly yours. Your approach, your frameworks, your language, your style. In coach-supervised AI, the AI learns from your methodology over time and applies it in between-session support. Your methodology is never replaced by generic advice or templates.
Coaching Engagement
The defined period of coaching work with a client. Typically 6 to 8 sessions over several months. During this time, your coaching twin learns from your sessions and becomes more closely aligned with your approach. When the engagement ends, the relationship can continue through coaching extensions.
Developmental Thread
The continuity of a client’s growth arc across sessions and beyond the final one. When coaching ends without a developmental thread, clients often revert to old patterns. Session prep briefs, between-session support, and coaching extensions are designed to preserve this thread.
Behaviour Change
A lasting shift in how a client thinks and acts. Research shows that behaviour change depends heavily on what happens between sessions, not just within them. Between-session support, reflection prompts, and continuity are designed to help coaching land deeper and last longer.
Informed Consent
Your client understands and agrees to session recording before it happens. What data is captured, how it is used, who has access, how it is stored. CoachNova provides consent templates you can share with clients, or you can use your own.
Read about how we protect your sessionsProfessional Judgment
Your expertise, your ethics, your discretionary decision-making. In coach-supervised AI, your professional judgment remains at the centre. You decide what the AI proposes, what your clients receive, and when. Aligned with ICF and EMCC competency frameworks.
Accountability
Your client following through on commitments made in coaching. Between sessions, smart nudges and reflection prompts support accountability without replacing the coaching relationship. Your oversight ensures it stays grounded in the coaching context.
Continuity
The unbroken thread of your coaching support before, during, between, and after sessions. When continuity is preserved, your client’s momentum is maintained and regression is less likely. Session prep briefs, between-session support, and coaching extensions are all designed to keep that thread intact.
AI & Technology
Large Language ModelLLM
The type of AI that powers tools like ChatGPT and Claude. An LLM is trained on large amounts of text and can generate human-like responses. CoachNova uses LLMs as a foundation and adds a private layer on top, personalised to your methodology and your specific clients. Your coaching data never trains the underlying model.
Private Layer
Your coaching twin’s personalised AI layer, built on your sessions with specific clients. Isolated from other coaches and from the base model’s training data. Your session data never trains the general model. No one else can access it. Not other coaches. Not CoachNova staff.
Pattern Recognition
AI’s ability to identify recurring themes, language patterns, and developmental progressions across coaching sessions. Over time, this surfaces patterns that might take a coach many sessions to notice manually. It supports your intuition and experience with a system that sees across all sessions at once.
AI Literacy
Understanding how AI actually works, what it can do, and where its limitations lie. Research suggests AI literacy is the strongest predictor of whether coaches adopt AI tools. Coaches who understand AI are better equipped to evaluate it on their own terms. CoachNova's free webinar is designed to build this understanding.
Hallucination
When AI generates information that sounds plausible but is incorrect or fabricated. This is a known limitation of large language models. In coach-supervised AI, hallucinations are caught before they reach clients because the coach reviews every output. The coach is always the final filter.
Prompt
An instruction given to AI to generate a response. In CoachNova, prompts are generated automatically from your session content. You do not need to write them yourself. The system creates relevant reflection questions, nudges, and support grounded in what actually happened in your sessions.
Agentic AI
AI that can take actions and make decisions autonomously, rather than just responding to prompts. In coaching, this raises important questions about oversight. CoachNova’s approach is explicitly not fully agentic: the AI proposes, but the coach decides and approves before anything reaches the client.
AI Bias
When AI makes assumptions based on patterns in its training data that do not fit your client’s context. In coaching, this might surface as assumptions about goals, culture, or developmental stage. An AI trained mostly on Western corporate leadership data might miss nuances relevant to other contexts. That is why you review every output. You catch what the AI cannot see.
Natural Language ProcessingNLP (in AI)
The technology that enables AI to understand and generate human language. It is what makes session intelligence, coaching twins, and reflection prompts possible. Not to be confused with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (also abbreviated NLP), which is a coaching and communication methodology.
Data & Privacy
GDPRGeneral Data Protection Regulation
The European Union’s data protection framework, governing how personal data is collected, stored, and processed. CoachNova is GDPR-compliant from day one, registered in Ireland, with session data stored in the EU. If you work with European clients or corporate contracts, GDPR compliance matters.
Read our privacy policyData Processing AgreementDPA
A legal agreement required under GDPR when a third party processes personal data on your behalf. CoachNova provides a DPA as standard for all coaches. If your corporate clients require one for procurement, it is ready to go.
View our DPAData Sovereignty
The principle that you own your data and can export or delete it at any time. At CoachNova, coaches have full ownership of their session data. When you leave, your data leaves with you. There is no vendor lock-in and no hostage data.
EU-Hosted
Session data stored on servers within the European Union. CoachNova stores all session data in Frankfurt, Germany on AWS. This is relevant for coaches with European clients and for corporate contracts that require GDPR compliance. Where processing involves partners outside the EU, GDPR-approved transfer safeguards are used.
Encryption
The process of encoding data so it can only be read by authorised parties. CoachNova encrypts session data both at rest (when stored) and in transit (when moving between systems). This means your coaching sessions are protected at every stage.
Subprocessor
A third-party service that processes data on behalf of CoachNova, such as cloud hosting and AI model providers. CoachNova maintains a transparent list and uses GDPR-approved transfer safeguards where processing involves partners outside the EU.
View our subprocessorsConsent Template
A ready-to-use document you can share with clients before using CoachNova. It explains what is recorded, how data is used, who has access, and how it is protected. You can customise it or use your own.
EU AI Act
The European Union’s regulation on artificial intelligence, the first comprehensive AI law globally. It became mandatory in August 2025. The Act classifies AI systems by risk level and sets requirements for transparency, oversight, and accountability. For coaches using AI tools, it means the platforms you choose should be able to demonstrate compliance with these standards. CoachNova is registered in the EU and designed with these principles from the start.
Data Residency
The physical location where data is stored and processed. Data residency matters because different jurisdictions have different privacy laws. CoachNova’s data residency is in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany), which means your session data is subject to GDPR protections regardless of where you or your clients are located.
Professional Bodies & Research
ICFInternational Coaching Federation
The primary global professional body for coaching. The ICF sets competency standards and ethical guidelines for coaches worldwide. CoachNova’s coach-supervised AI model is designed to support ICF competency alignment, keeping coach responsibility and client welfare at the centre.
EMCCEuropean Mentoring and Coaching Council
A professional body for coaching and mentoring in Europe. EMCC sets competency and ethical standards for the profession. Research by EMCC and Henley Business School found that 57.7% of coaches do not believe AI chatbots deliver proper coaching, supporting the case for coach-supervised models.
MCCMaster Certified Coach
The highest credential level awarded by the ICF. MCC coaches have demonstrated mastery of coaching skills. CoachNova engages with ICF MCC assessors to ensure its approach aligns with the highest coaching standards.
Coaching Competencies
Professional standards defining what effective coaching looks like: establishing trust, active listening, powerful questioning, facilitating client growth. Set by ICF, EMCC, and other bodies. Coach-supervised AI is designed to support these competencies, not bypass them.
Coaching Ethics
Confidentiality, informed consent, client welfare. The principles governing responsible coaching practice. When AI enters the coaching process, ethical oversight becomes even more important. Coach-supervised AI ensures you maintain ethical responsibility for every client interaction.
Coaching Supervision
A professional practice where coaches reflect on their work with a qualified supervisor to develop their skills and maintain ethical standards. Distinct from “coach-supervised AI,” which refers to the coach’s oversight of AI outputs. Both are important, and they complement each other.
ICF AI Coaching Standards
Guidelines published by the ICF for integrating AI into coaching ethically and effectively. The core principles: fairness, transparency, privacy, accountability, and human supervision. CoachNova’s coach-supervised model is designed to support these standards.
Read about our ICF alignmentPCCProfessional Certified Coach
A mid-level credential awarded by the ICF, requiring at least 500 hours of coaching experience. PCC coaches have demonstrated proficiency in core coaching competencies.
ACCAssociate Certified Coach
An entry-level credential awarded by the ICF, requiring at least 100 hours of coaching experience. ACC is often the first formal certification for coaches building their professional practice.
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