AI session notes for coaches: a tool-neutral workflow

In April I ran a live AI workshop for coaches. The handout I wrote for it had a section on transcripts.

Let a note-taker join every call. Run one prompt at 6pm. Find session notes, a follow-up and a testimonial ask waiting in your drafts.

It never once said: ask your client first.

That was my miss. This guide is the version I’d hand out now.

I don’t sell a note-taker. Most of what ranks for this topic is written by companies that do, so every guide ends with their app.

This one ends with a template you own. Tools come and go. The template stays. Get the template free, plus follow-ups that sound like you.

Coaches clearly want this.

This month I had 499 Reddit posts and YouTube comments about coaches and AI analysed.

Session notes and follow-ups tied for the second most-named job.

One executive coach wanted a way to “keep track of what we talked through in session” without taking notes (r/executivecoaching).

A client in r/lifecoaching said they appreciate a coach who sends transcripts and summaries.

They want different things from the same tool. A transcript is a memory. A note is a decision about what mattered.

What should an AI coaching note actually capture?

Less than you think. Nobody rereads a transcript before the next session.

You reread the note, for about a minute, while the kettle boils. Build it for that minute.

The “What I noticed” row is the coaching. Keep it out of the tool.

It’s half-formed on purpose, and a half-formed hunch about a person reads very differently once a machine has typed it up neatly and filed it.

How do you ask a client for consent to AI notes?

Think of the recorder as a third person in the room.

You wouldn’t bring a colleague into a session without introducing them. Introduce the tool the same way: out loud, and in writing.

The script I’d read at the start of a first session:

Before we start: I use an AI tool to help write up my notes. [The call is recorded / I record a short voice note after we finish.] The tool drafts a note, and I read and correct every one myself. Names and health details stay out. I delete the recording after [30] days and keep only the note. You can say no, now or later, and nothing about our work changes. Are you comfortable with that?

And a clause for your coaching agreement:

AI-assisted notes. With your permission, [Coach] may record sessions or dictate notes after them, and use [tool] to draft session notes. [Coach] reviews every note. Names, health information and anything you ask to keep off the record are removed first, and model training is switched off on any tool used. Recordings and transcripts are deleted within [30] days. Reviewed notes are kept for [our work together plus X months], then deleted. You can withdraw this permission at any time, and sessions will continue without recording.

The wording matters less than what it promises. A no that changes nothing. A clear list of what stays out. A date when the raw recording disappears.

What the law and the ICF expect

Recording laws differ by place.

In the US, states including California and Florida require everyone on the call to agree (Justia’s 50-state survey).

A call with a client in one of those states can fall under its rules, even if you’re somewhere else.

If you hold an ICF credential, the 2025 Code of Ethics added a standard covering technology and AI.

ICF’s ethics guidance makes the coach responsible for informed consent before using AI tools.

I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. Have someone qualified read your agreement.

Which setup should you use for AI session notes?

There are two jobs here, and most tools blur them. Capture gets the words out of the session.

Writing turns them into a note and a recap. Capture is cheap now, sometimes free. The writing is where your practice lives.

My recommendation: build route three first, even if you add one of the others later.

Let Zoom or a note-taker do the capture if you like, then paste its transcript into your own project.

The template, the rules and the voice stay yours when you change tools. And you will change tools.

You also don’t have to record at all.

Straight after the session, talk into your phone for two minutes: what they said, what they committed to, what you noticed.

That voice memo is enough for route three, and nobody new was in the room. The workshop works this way now. Recording is optional.

The workflow, step by step

1. Set up the project once. Create a project in Claude or ChatGPT. Switch model training off first.

   Paste in your note template, the prompt below and one recap you’ve sent before, with names removed.

   No past recap you can use? Write a sample one.

2. Get consent once per client, out loud and in the agreement.
3. Capture within the hour. Transcript or voice memo. Replace names before you paste.
4. Run the prompt.

5. Check it against your memory, not against the transcript. Are the quotes real?

   Is the commitment the one they made, or a tidier one? Did anything private slip in?

   Does the recap sound like you on a good day? What’s under “Check this”?

6. Send the recap yourself. Nothing goes to a client until you’ve read it.
7. Delete the raw transcript when you said you would.

The prompt

It’s built on the one from my April handout (“quoting their exact words”, “the ONE commitment they made”), with the guardrails it was missing.

You're helping me write up a coaching session. Names are already replaced with [CLIENT], [MANAGER] and so on. Keep them that way.

Fill my note template:
- Their words: 2-4 lines quoted exactly. Never put a paraphrase inside quote marks.
- Commitments: what they said they'd do, by when, in their words. No date? Write "no date".
- Themes: up to 3, one line each.
- Thread for next time: one question I could open with.
- Check this: anything you inferred or weren't sure about.
Leave "What shifted" and "What I noticed" blank. I write those.

Rules:
- Only use what's in the transcript. If it wasn't discussed, write "not discussed".
- Leave out health details, other people's private information and anything said off the record.
- Don't diagnose or interpret their personality.
- No praise, no advice, no adjectives about their growth.

Then draft a recap email to [CLIENT] in my voice, under 150 words: open with their strongest line, name the one commitment in their words, end with the next session date. Match the tone of this past recap: [PASTE ONE RECAP, NAMES REMOVED]

Transcript or voice memo:
[PASTE]

If you want the reasoning behind rules like these, read how to write rules for an AI system.

What does a good AI session note look like?

Here is one session, start to finish.

Illustrative: the client, the manager and the conversation are invented, so I can show you what real notes would never let me show.

1. The transcript excerpt, names already replaced

COACH: Last time you said you'd raise the promotion with [MANAGER]. How did it go?
CLIENT: I didn't. I wrote the email twice and deleted it. I think I'm waiting to be picked.
COACH: Waiting to be picked. Say more.
CLIENT: If I'm good enough, she'll notice. Asking feels like admitting I'm not.
COACH: What would asking look like if it wasn't an admission?
CLIENT: Maybe not an email. Maybe I just put it on the agenda for our one-to-one on Thursday.
COACH: What would you want to walk out of Thursday with?
CLIENT: A date. When we'd come back to it. Even if the answer is no.
...
CLIENT: [PARTNER] keeps saying I should just quit, which doesn't help.

2. The AI’s first draft

Their words: "I'm waiting to be picked." "Asking feels like admitting I'm not."
Commitments: Will ask [MANAGER] for a promotion at Thursday's one-to-one.
Themes: Self-worth at work. Fear of rejection. Partner pressure to quit.
Thread for next time: How did the promotion request go?
Check this: Nothing flagged.

Three problems. The commitment is wrong: they agreed to put it on the agenda and ask for a date, not to ask for the promotion.

That’s the tidy upgrade AI makes all the time, a “maybe” turned into a plan. The first quote drops “I think”, which changes how sure the client sounded.

And the partner line shouldn’t be there at all. It’s someone else’s opinion about the client’s life.

3. The note after a two-minute check

Their words: "I think I'm waiting to be picked." "Asking feels like admitting I'm not."
Commitments: Put the promotion on the agenda for Thursday's one-to-one and ask for a date to revisit it. "Even if the answer is no." No firm yes: they said "maybe".
Themes: Waiting to be noticed vs. asking. Email as a way to avoid the room.
What shifted: Moved from "send an email" to "say it in the meeting". (mine)
Thread for next time: What did you walk out of Thursday with?
Check this: Commitment was tentative. Ask early.

4. The recap email

Subject: Thursday

Hi [CLIENT],

"I think I'm waiting to be picked." I keep coming back to that line.

Your next step, in your words: put it on the agenda for Thursday's one-to-one and ask for a date to come back to it. Even if the answer is no.

You don't need the whole conversation on Thursday. Just the date.

See you on the 16th.
[COACH]

No “great progress”. No “powerful breakthrough”. Their line, their commitment, your sign-off.

Where do AI session notes go wrong?

I read an AI-written note about my own work every morning.

A routine goes through the last day and a half of my AI conversations, across three accounts, and writes me a dated summary.

It fails the way coaching notes fail.

Confident mistakes

On 1 September, my morning summary flagged its number-one red flag of the day: a fix to one of my sites had never left my laptop. It had.

It was live. The AI saw one empty line of output, built a whole story on top of it and delivered it with total confidence.

A session note will do the same with a pause, a joke or a “maybe”.

The rule I run on now: if it doesn’t know, it says so.

A gap is better than an invented number. In a coaching note, that’s “not discussed” and the “Check this” line.

Flattery and tone drift

My app revenue report was once caught flattering itself and had to be rewritten to match the real numbers.

Coaching notes flatter too: “great progress”, “a real breakthrough”. Your clients don’t talk like that, and neither do you.

Recaps drift the same way, toward something that sounds like a LinkedIn post. One real recap of yours in the project pulls it back.

Over-capture

A full transcript feels safe. It isn’t. It’s more of your client’s private life on more servers, and it buries the three lines you actually need.

Quotes nobody said

AI will put quote marks around a paraphrase.

Send “you said” back to a client who didn’t say it and you lose a little trust for nothing. Check every quote. It takes seconds.

Every mistake I catch becomes a rule in the instructions, so it can’t come back quietly. That’s the whole maintenance plan.

What should never go into an AI tool?

My rule of thumb: the safest sensitive data is the data you never moved.

In the April workshop, the prompt for cleaning up public Facebook comments started with a redact step.

Remove names, locations, employers, specific medical conditions and identifying details.

Swap in [NAME], [PLACE], [EMPLOYER] and [DETAIL].

Session notes need the same step, and a longer list. Before you paste, take out:

• Names, including the people your client mentions: partners, managers, children.
• Health: diagnoses, medication, therapy, pregnancy, anything about their body or mind that isn’t the coaching goal itself.
• Anything said “off the record” or “don’t write this down”.
• What an executive client doesn’t want their sponsor or employer to know.
• Money details: salaries, debts, account numbers.
• Anything about a child.
• Your own “What I noticed” hunches.

Then check the settings. In Claude, model training is a choice in your privacy settings.

With it off, consumer chats are kept for 30 days, not up to five years.

In ChatGPT, turn off “Improve the model for everyone” under Data controls. Do it before the first real session, not after.

Questions coaches ask

Can I just use Zoom’s AI summary?

Yes, and for online sessions it’s the easiest start. Zoom says it doesn’t use your audio, video or chat content to train its own or third-party AI models.

The catch is the format: it’s Zoom’s summary, not your note. Paste it into your own project as the input and let your template do the rest.

Do coaches need to be HIPAA compliant?

Usually not, but check your own situation.

HIPAA applies to covered entities: health plans, health care clearinghouses and certain health care providers.

A provider is covered when it sends health information electronically in certain standard transactions.

Most coaches aren’t one. If you’re also a licensed clinician, or you coach under a health provider’s contract, that can change.

In the UK and EU, health information is special category data under GDPR, with stricter rules. This isn’t legal advice.

How long should I keep recordings and transcripts?

Keep the reviewed note.

Delete the raw recording and transcript once the note is checked, and put the number of days in your agreement so the client knows.

The ICF Code of Ethics asks coaches to store and dispose of records, electronic files included, so they stay confidential.

It also asks you to follow the law and your agreements.

What if a client says no?

Then you don’t record, and nothing about the coaching changes.

Dictate a two-minute voice memo after the session, with names left out, and run the same template on that. Most of the value survives.

Build it with me.

In the AI for Coaches workshop, we build this around one task from your practice, using fictional, anonymised or permissioned notes.

You leave with your own note template, and nothing reaches a client before you’ve read it.