AI Use & Disclosure Policy

Valuable Leadership® / Humanship™ Effective Date: June 1, 2026 | Next Review: December 1, 2026 Contact: [email protected]

Our Philosophy

AI should enhance human dignity, never replace human insight. That conviction sits at the center of our Humanship™ model, and it governs every choice we make about the tools we use.

AI can organize information, surface patterns, summarize ideas, and support reflection. It cannot coach. Presence, discernment, trust, care, ethics, and accountability are human responsibilities that stay with your coach.

So we use AI deliberately: carefully, selectively, and in the open. It provides clarity, personalization, and growth — and only within firm limits that protect your privacy, dignity, and agency.

Every AI-supported engagement follows the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Code of Ethics (2025) and the ICF AI Coaching Framework & Standards.

Our Core Principles

Transparency

You will always be told when AI-supported tools are used in connection with your coaching. That may include transcription, summaries, reflection prompts, resource development, or pattern recognition across your coaching materials.

You may ask, at any time, which tools we use, why we use them, what information they process, and how their outputs are reviewed. We will answer plainly.

Consent

Sessions are never recorded or transcribed by default.

When recording, transcription, or AI-assisted note-taking would genuinely serve your work, we ask first and explain why. You may decline, and declining never affects the coaching relationship in any way.

If sensitive material surfaces mid-session, either of us may pause or stop recording, transcription, or note-taking on the spot. No explanation is required.

Human Oversight

AI never substitutes for your coach's judgment. Your coach reviews, interprets, and integrates every AI-supported output before it informs the work.

AI may help illuminate a theme. It does not make decisions, diagnose, evaluate character, determine readiness, or stand in for human discernment.

Confidentiality

Recordings, transcripts, summaries, and detailed session notes are confidential coaching records.

They are never shared with employers, sponsors, HR partners, managers, boards, or any third party without your explicit permission — the only exceptions being where the law requires it or where you have agreed otherwise in writing.

When an organization sponsors your coaching, any reporting is limited to themes, goals, attendance, progress indicators, or outcomes that you and your coach have agreed to in advance. The substance of what you say stays between us.

Safety

AI is never used for crisis response, therapy, medical or mental health diagnosis, legal advice, financial advice, or high-stakes employment decisions.

It is also set aside whenever a human-only space is required by safety, sensitivity, trust, or ethical care.

You may request a human-only session at any time, for any reason or none.

Tools We Use

We keep our toolset small and deliberate so it stays trustworthy. Recording and transcription are limited to:

  • Zoom — when a virtual session is intentionally recorded or transcribed, with your consent
  • Apple Voice Memos — when an in-person or post-session audio note is useful and appropriate

For working with coaching material, we may also use:

  • Google NotebookLM and Claude — in limited cases, to help identify themes, patterns, and connections across assessments, coaching materials, and session summaries

Every insight these tools produce is reviewed by your coach and used only to support reflection — never as a substitute for professional judgment.

Before any tool touches client material, we review its privacy, security, retention, and data-use practices, and we confirm it is configured to meet the commitments in this policy. We do not use tools that train public AI models on identifiable client content. If we add or change a tool, that same review happens first.

How We May Use AI, With Your Consent

With your consent, AI-supported tools may help with:

  • Transcription, when a session is intentionally recorded
  • Session and progress summaries
  • Reflection prompts
  • Customized exercises and resources
  • Pattern and theme recognition across assessments, notes, and goals
  • Drafting materials that your coach then reviews and edits
  • Organizing your goals, commitments, and next steps

In every case, AI is a support tool — never a substitute for coaching presence, judgment, or accountability.

A Note on Pattern Recognition

Of everything AI does in our practice, recognizing patterns across your accumulated materials is the most powerful — and the one we treat with the most care.

Looking across assessments, notes, and goals can illuminate something worth exploring. It can also overreach: flattening a person into a trend, hardening a tentative observation into a verdict, or shaping how a coach sees you before you have spoken. We refuse that.

So this use carries the strongest safeguards we apply. Patterns AI surfaces are treated as questions, never conclusions. Your coach weighs them against the living reality of who you are and the relationship between you. Nothing AI notices is allowed to define you, and you may ask that your materials not be processed this way at all.

Recording and Transcription

Sessions are never recorded or transcribed by default.

When recording or transcription is used, we explain, before anything is captured:

  • Why it may be useful
  • Which tool will be used
  • Who will have access
  • How the information may be used
  • How long will it be retained
  • How you can request deletion, correction, or access

You may decline. You may also stop recording or transcription at any point during a session.

Because recordings and transcripts can hold sensitive material, we use them sparingly and only when they clearly serve your coaching.

Data Use, Storage, and Retention

We use tools that provide strong privacy, security, and data protection for coaching material, and we do not use tools that train public AI models on identifiable client content. Because platforms change their terms and features, we review our tools on an ongoing basis and adjust our practices accordingly.

Our standing commitments:

  • Raw recordings are deleted within 30 days, unless a clear coaching, legal, or contractual reason requires keeping them longer.
  • Transcripts and summaries are kept only as long as they serve your engagement, our continuity of work, a legal obligation, or an agreed client record.
  • Client-identifiable material is never used in public examples, marketing, teaching, writing, or training without your permission or careful anonymization.
  • Access is limited to your coach and any authorized support providers required for secure operations.

Accuracy and Limitations

AI-generated transcripts, summaries, and outputs can be incomplete, inaccurate, or missing important nuance.

That is why a human reviews them before they are relied upon. When meaning matters, human judgment comes first — always.

You are encouraged to clarify, correct, or challenge anything that does not feel right to you.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Know when AI-supported tools are being used
  • Ask what tools are used, and why
  • Decline AI-supported recording, transcription, or summaries
  • Request a human-only coaching space
  • Ask how your information is stored and used
  • Request access to, correction of, or deletion of your information — subject to legal, ethical, and contractual limits
  • Ask that sensitive topics not be processed through AI-supported tools

What AI Is Never Used For

AI is never used to:

  • Diagnose mental health or medical conditions
  • Provide therapy
  • Replace coaching judgment
  • Make final decisions about a client
  • Make employment, promotion, termination, or compensation decisions
  • Evaluate a client's worth, character, or potential
  • Share confidential session content with a sponsor or employer
  • Handle crisis situations or urgent safety concerns
  • Replace the human relationship at the center of coaching

Sponsored or Employer-Paid Coaching

When an employer or organization sponsors your coaching, confidentiality holds exactly as it would otherwise.

Sponsors may receive agreed-upon updates on process, goals, themes, or progress. They never receive raw transcripts, recordings, detailed notes, or private coaching content — unless you give explicit written permission, or the law requires disclosure.

You are the person being coached. A sponsor may support the engagement, but the relationship itself depends on trust, privacy, and psychological safety, and those belong to you.

Client Consent Language

As part of your coaching engagement, Valuable Leadership® may use AI-supported tools to assist with reflection, summary, resource sharing, and progress tracking.

Sessions are never recorded or transcribed by default. If recording or transcription would be useful, your coach will ask for your consent first and explain how the material will be used.

By participating in coaching, you acknowledge that:

  • You will be informed when AI-supported tools are used
  • You may opt out of recording, transcription, or AI-supported summaries
  • Your coach remains responsible for all interpretation and professional judgment
  • AI outputs may be imperfect and may require human review
  • Confidential coaching content will not be shared with sponsors, employers, or third parties without your permission, except where required by law
  • You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your information, subject to legal, ethical, and contractual limits

Our Closing Commitment

AI may help us notice patterns. It may help us remember commitments. It may help us organize insight.

It does not replace the human work at the heart of coaching: being seen, being heard, being challenged, being supported, being trusted.

With Valuable Leadership® and Humanship™, you are not a dataset. You are a whole and dignified human being.

AI supports the work. The work stays human-led.