The Edge of Human and AI
The Edge of Human & AI explores the intersection of coaching and artificial intelligence, examining how AI impacts ethics, innovation, and human connection in the coaching world. Each episode tackles critical questions about what remains irreplaceably human. The podcast emphasizes depth over hype and evidence over buzzwords. It is a production of Viva la Coaching.
Episodes
What Does Good AI Look Like? | with Iliana Grosse-Buening
Iliana Grosse-Buening has spent her career at the intersection of responsible technology, human flourishing, and ethics. From building educational technology across 45 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to leading DeeplyHuman and running the Youth Imagination Lab, she has been asking one foundational question: What does good AI look like — and if human flourishing is the goal, what needs to change?
Designing AI for Reflection, Not Advice: Conversation Architecture, Avatars, and Ethics | with Dr. Vanessa Mai
Dr. Vanessa Mai is a systemic business coach, communication scientist and researcher at the University of Cologne. Since 2019, she has been pioneering the empirical design of AI coaching chatbots. Her mission is clear: creating conversational systems that foster genuine human self-reflection rather than delivering pre-packaged advice. In this conversation with Rebecca Rutschmann, she bridges the g
Surfing the Third Wave: Why AI Demands a New Era of Stewardship in Coaching | with Dr. Jeffrey Hull
Institute of Coaching (Harvard Medical School affiliate)—and he has spent over thirty years guiding leaders through profound paradigm shifts. Now, he's asking a fundamental question: When AI enters the room, how do human practitioners step into true stewardship? In this conversation with Rebecca Rutschmann, he breaks down the three evolutionary waves of coaching—from therapy and human potential, t
The Leader of the Future Isn't the Most Expert — They're the Most Rooted | with Nicole Forward
Nicole Forward has spent her career in the rooms where real transformation happens. From restorative justice and conflict resolution, to Fortune 100 leadership development, to her role as Head of Coaching & Development at RHR International — she has always been asking the same question: what actually makes change last? In this conversation with Rebecca Rutschmann, Nicole shares why AI isn't what w
The AI-Ready Leader Has Nothing to Do with AI — It's All About Judgment | with Shanda Mints
There are two kinds of people in the age of AI. Those who use it to elevate their judgment — and those who quietly outsource their judgment to it. The difference between them isn't technical. It's a choice. And most leaders don't realize they're making it. Shanda Mints has spent 25 years transforming workforces at global scale and over a decade deploying AI in talent and leadership — long before g
The Core of Coaching Is Universally Human | with Dr. Jessica Singh
Jessica Singh was a board-certified emergency physician — trained at Stanford, credentialed by ICF and NBHWC — when she realized that none of her expertise was what was actually transforming people. What was? The coaching relationship itself. The presence. The inner work. The willingness to sit with someone without needing to fix them. In this episode, Jessica shares the journey from a Pediatric E
What Both Sides of the AI Debate Have in Common — and the Risk Neither Is Talking About | with Dr. Laura Rees-Davies
Dr. Laura Rees-Davies is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, Senior Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, and active practicing coach — and she's mid-way through something most researchers don't have the nerve to do: interviewing coaches at every point of the AI adoption spectrum, and following the data wherever it leads. What she's finding surprised even her. In this conversation with R
The Art of Becoming a Mature Coach | with Dr. David Drake
There's a moment when competency stops being enough. You know the techniques. You've logged the hours. You've helped people move. And still — something in you knows there's a further shore, and the models you've mastered can't take you there. David Drake has spent 30 years mapping what lies beyond mastery. As the creator of Narrative Coaching and author of the forthcoming Five Maturities, he has
How AI Is Forcing the Leadership Shift We Were Never Prepared For | with Sheila Boysen-Rotelli
No one prepared us for this. Not our leadership programs. Not our years of expertise. Not the organizations we built our identities inside. AI is forcing a shift that most leaders, educators, and coaches were never designed to support — and the gap between recognizing it intellectually and actually making the transition is wider, and more personal, than most people are willing to admit. In this ep
What "Client-Centered" Actually Demands in the Age of AI | with Jonathan Reitz
What if the biggest barrier to AI in coaching isn't the technology — it's the coach? Jonathan Reitz has spent 29 years coaching leaders and building coaches. He has a wildly unlikely backstory — electrical engineering, stand-up comedy, radio, TV news — and an ADHD diagnosis just two years ago that finally explained all of it. Now a leading voice at the NYU AI Summit and ICF Germany, Jonathan joins
AI Is Here to Stay — But So Are We | with David E. Cooley
What if the best way to be more human as a coach... is to use more AI? In this episode, Rebecca is joined by David E. Cooley — Director of Alumni Career Services and Executive Coach at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and founder of the David E. Cooley Executive Coaching Scholarship at NYU. David bridges two worlds: the strategic use of AI in coaching sessions, and the deeply human skill o
Viva la Humans: AI, Regulation, and Reinvention - Expanding the Conversation after NYU Coaching & Technology Summit 2026 (LIVE Recording)
What happens when a room full of coaches, researchers, and tech innovators gathers in New York — and the biggest question isn't about AI, but about coaching itself? In this special Guardians LIVE episode, Rebecca and Viva la Coaching community members who attended the 5th Annual NYU Coaching & Technology Summit reflect on what stayed with them, what made them uncomfortable, and what the coaching p
High-Performance Parenting - Balancing Leadership, Wellness & Family | with Neal Sundberg & Nicholas Wooters
Join Rebecca as she sits down with Neal Sundberg (Director of Care Programs at Brightline) and Nicholas Wooters (Co-Founder of Coya) during a Webinar for a deeply personal conversation about thriving as a leader both at work and at home. Discover how wearable technology paired with health coaching creates powerful insights for managing stress, setting boundaries, and showing up fully in every role
How Can We Make Care More Intelligent Without Making It Less Human? | with Dr. Moain Abu Dabrh
Dr. Moain Abu Dabrh is a medical humanist, researcher at Mayo Clinic, and board member at the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching — and he's been asking one question his entire career: How can we make care more intelligent without making it less human? In this conversation with Rebecca Rutschmann, he unpacks four real concerns about AI in healthcare — dehumanization, overconfidence, in
From Wild West to Apple Store and Why The Profession Isn't Going to Solve AI Alone | with Susan Caesar
Susan Caesar is the first-ever Chief AI Officer at the International Coaching Federation and founder of Humane Org. Her career has had one red thread: being human. And her message to the coaching profession right now? You don't have to figure this out alone. In this conversation with Rebecca Rutschmann, Susan makes a passionate case for community as the antidote to overwhelm — AI circles,
BONUS - Five Years at the Intersection: Coaching, Technology and What's Coming Next | with Dr. Anna Tavis
What if AI isn't pushing us away from our humanity but is forcing us back to it? Dr. Anna Tavis, co-founder of the NYU Coaching & Technology Summit, joins Rebecca Rutschmann to mark five years at the intersection of coaching and technology. From a handful of masked startups and early scale-ups in 2022 to CHROs from Netflix and IBM rethinking everything — the landscape has transformed, and coaches
The Health Coaching Profession is Growing Too Fast to Be Left Unguarded | with Deanna Fournier
Health coaching is growing fast — wearables are tracking everything, AI is entering the wellness space, and more people than ever are looking for support beyond the clinic. But who's making sure any of it actually works? Deanna Fournier and the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching are. In this conversation, Deanna unpacks why a rigorous credentialing body isn't bureaucracy — it's protec
Who's Responsible? 4 Billion People Need Coaching and Tech Companies Got There First | with Lewin Keller
There are 120,000 certified coaches on the planet. There are 4 billion people who could use one. And right now, it's tech companies — not coaches — who are deciding what coaching means for all of them. Lewin, founder of CoachBot.ai, joins Rebecca Rutschmann for one of the most honest conversations in this series. A former Google engineer turned coach turned AI builder, he pulls no punches on t
Why Optimism Is the Most Important Skill for Coaches Right Now | with Dr. Woody Woodward
Woody Woodward has coached senior executives, built a Master's degree at NYU, co-authored The Digital Coaching Revolution, co-created the NYU Coaching & Technology Summit in 2022 and is now Chief Coaching Officer at BetterUp, leading the world's largest coaching network of 4,000 coaches across 70 countries. In this conversation, Woody shares what four million coaching sessions and the world's
The Uncomfortable Truth from a Researcher: AI Has Raised the Bar for Coaching | with Prof. Dr. Nicky Terblanche
Nicky Terblanche is the world's leading researcher in AI coaching. He recently received the Anthony Grant Award for Research Excellence at the IOC Conference in Boston, named after the researcher who inspired him to care about evidence in the first place. A full-circle moment worth celebrating, A former software engineer turned coach turned academic, he started thinking about the possibilities
How AI is Changing the Leaders We Coach | with Pam Krulitz
The coaching conversation has been obsessing over one question: how is AI changing coaching? Pam Krulitz thinks we're asking the wrong one. The more important question — the one nobody's talking about loudly enough — is how AI is changing the leaders we coach. Because the people sitting across from us now aren't the same leaders they were three years ago. They're navigating constant change, manag
How Responsible AI looks like in Mental Health Coaching | with Shelby Garay
As Program Director of the Headspace Training Institute — training the next generation of mental health coaches — Shelby sits at one of the most critical intersections in coaching today: where AI meets mental health, and where getting it wrong has real consequences. This conversation is about what getting it right actually looks like. At Headspace, that means clinical safety guardrails with human
Human. AI. And Something Neither Can Do Alone | with Jonathan Kirschner
What if the most powerful coaching relationship in the future involves three parties — a human coach, an AI, and the space between them that neither could create alone? Jonathan Kirschner has been thinking about this longer than most. He built AIIR (Assessment, Insight, Implementation, Reinforcement) in 2009 to bring behavioral science and structure to what Harvard Business Review called "the Wil
Come Stand With Us at The Edge
Coaching is changing. AI is here. And nobody has all the answers yet. The Edge of Human & AI is the podcast for coaches, leaders, and thinkers who want to go deeper than the hype — into the real questions about what it means to be human in an age of intelligent machines. Bold conversations. Uncomfortable edges. No easy answers. Welcome to the Edge. https://vivalacoaching.com/vivapodcast/
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