I wrestled with the title of this blog. When I wrote, “AI can’t look you in the eye,” I felt like a “yet” needed to be added, given how quickly artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing. But will this be our preferred future, looking into the eyes of a simulation on a screen rather than a human sitting side by side with us? It makes me wonder: can AI actually make coaching better?

It is a fair question, and an important one. Coaches and school districts across the country are experimenting with AI tools, and some of what they are finding is genuinely useful. At the same time, some technology companies are developing programs designed to automate coaching altogether removing the human component entirely. Before we can answer that question fully, it helps to look clearly at what AI can and cannot do.

What AI Can Do

AI can bring value to coaching. It can analyze data faster than any person. It can transcribe conversations or lessons, spot trends across a classroom or data set, and help coaches identify patterns they might otherwise miss. It can also help coaches prepare questions before a meeting and reflect afterward on what happened.

For coaches who are stretched thin on time, that kind of support matters. When AI handles time-consuming tasks, coaches have more energy for the work that only they can do.

Used well, AI can help a coach become more prepared and focused. That is worth taking seriously and trying out different AI platforms to discover your preference.

What AI Cannot Do

At the same time, there are things AI simply cannot do.

It cannot look a teacher in the eye and know something is wrong. It cannot hear the hesitation in a teacher’s voice when they say the lesson went fine. It cannot sit with a teacher who is quietly discouraged and understand, without a word being spoken, that what that teacher needs most is not another suggestion but understanding. It is someone who believes in them.

AI has no lived experience. It has never stood in front of a classroom wondering whether the lesson they stayed up late to plan is actually going to land with the students or flop. It has never felt the joy of watching a student understand something that had been out of reach for a long time, or the sheer dismay when your careful planning turns to chaos and you think to yourself, “Okay, what do I have that we can do instead?”

Every coaching conversation a coach has is shaped by who they are, what they do, and what they have lived through. That cannot come from data or an algorithm. It comes from a person.

Brene Brown puts it plainly in Strong Ground. She warns against assuming that what makes us human will automatically protect our relevance in an age of AI. Her point is that we are not especially good at being human right now. If we bring poor listening, weak relationships, and surface-level communication into coaching, AI will not fix those problems; it will only help us do the wrong things faster.

That is a word of caution every coach and district leader needs to hear. AI amplifies what is already there. It is not a substitute for the hard human work of building trust, asking better questions, and truly being present with another teacher.

What Developers are Discovering

Researchers and developers are actively working to build empathy recognition into AI systems. This field is known as affective computing. These systems can be trained to detect emotional cues in a person’s voice, facial expressions, and word choices, and to generate responses that sound warm, supportive, and understanding. Yet when researchers study what actually happens, the pattern is consistent. When people learn that an empathetic message came from AI rather than a human, they often rate it as less sincere, even when the words are identical.

This tells us that teachers are not just looking for the right words. They are looking for the person behind them.

The fact that developers are working this hard to replicate empathy in machines is not a warning sign for coaching. It is an affirmation of what we already know. People do not want a simulation of empathy. They want the real thing. And the real thing comes from a coach who shows up, pays attention, and genuinely cares what happens next.

Where AI Fits In

The question is not whether to use AI. The questions are how to use it in a way that serves teachers and students.

AI works best when it gives coaches more time and energy for the conversations that matter. Use it to gather information before a meeting, not to replace the meeting. Use it to help prepare better questions, not to ask the questions for you.

Partnership principles remind us that coaching is built on dialogue, equality, and a belief that teachers are professionals with the capacity to solve their own challenges. Those principles cannot be automated. They are embedded in a coach’s way of being.

There is a reason we talk about “looking someone in the eye” when we want to describe a moment of real honesty, real connection, or real trust. It is because something happens between two people in those moments that no screen or algorithm can replicate. Eye contact is not just physical. It is about connection.

AI can do a lot of things well.

Looking you in the eye and connecting is not one of them.