The Health Coach's Complete Guide to AI | Functional Medicine Coaching Academy

Human-to-human connection is at the core of health coaching. Can artificial intelligence enhance it?

When health coaches collaborate with clients, they create a supportive space to identify goals, celebrate successes, and make life-changing behavior and mindset shifts. This empowering relationship enables clients to pursue wellness goals that make their lives better.

Is there room for artificial intelligence (AI) in such deeply personal work? And if so, how can coaches integrate AI without losing the human connection at the heart of coaching?

AI can’t do it all—it won’t meet with your clients, choose a coaching niche for you, or facilitate your group coaching. But what about administrative tasks, client reminders/check-ins, or marketing? Could AI play a role in these types of tasks?

With the recent rapid rise of generative AI, health coaches have an opportunity to explore how this new technology might complement their work. AI doesn’t replace the empathy, intuition, and personal touch that coaches bring to each session, but it can offer tools that improve client support, streamline administrative tasks, and even provide additional insights.

Ideally, coaches who use AI will free up more time to spend on what matters most: building relationships and guiding clients. But this technology is imperfect, with meaningful drawbacks that each coach must consider when determining the role of AI in their practice.

Read on to learn more about AI and explore how thoughtful use of these tools might amplify your work as a health coach.

What Health Coaches Need to Know About AI

The Basics of AI

Artificial Intelligence is a rapidly advancing field that encompasses a range of technologies programmed to work like the human brain works. By mimicking human brain function, AI can perform sophisticated processes like analysis, learning, and decision-making.

AI’s ability to carry out these processes independently, without the need for human intervention, allows it to automate tasks that traditionally required human intelligence. This functionality is driving change across many industries, from automating workflows to organizing data and beyond.

Though AI has surged in popularity over the past few years, it has been around for decades, and many forms of AI are already embedded into everyday life, including voice assistants, personalized streaming recommendations, and smart home devices.

For health coaches, AI can’t replace the care and guidance you provide, but it might make your work easier and more efficient. And as more of your clients become interested in AI, you can demonstrate your value and expertise by helping them integrate the technology into their coaching journeys, as appropriate.

Health coaches with a grasp of the basics of AI can open up practical new ways to enhance client support, streamline tasks, and personalize interactions, all while preserving the deeply human connection that defines health coaching.

Key AI Concepts and Terms

Within the vast umbrella of AI, a few core concepts and terms can clarify how these systems work, along with their strengths and limitations:

Algorithm: The instructions and rules by which an AI machine operates, guiding its behaviors toward specific outcomes.
Machine learning: A subset of AI that uses complex algorithms and computer models to analyze data, enabling the system to learn, improve, and adapt over time.
Generative AI: A type of machine learning that identifies connections and patterns among existing data, then uses them to create new, original content.
Deep learning: A subset of AI that mimics how the human brain processes and organizes large amounts of complex information. Deep learning allows AI to make independent decisions and solve complex problems.
Large language model: A type of AI that is trained on large amounts of text and code so that it can understand and generate conversational, human-like language.
Chatbot: An AI tool that imitates human conversation to interact with users through text or speech (ChatGPT is one example of an AI chatbot).
Prompt: The query or input a user provides to an AI system, which the system then interprets to generate a response. The quality and clarity of a prompt can significantly influence the effectiveness of AI’s output.
Bias: Since AI is trained on data created by humans, it inherits any human biases present in the data. This can skew responses, making it essential for users to critically evaluate AI outputs and not rely on them as objective truths.
Hallucination: An instance when AI confidently presents a response that is totally false but presents it as if it were true. This is a well-known limitation of AI models and one of the main reasons users should critically evaluate all AI-generated information.

The Potential and Limitations of AI

Generative AI, with its ability to analyze and synthesize large datasets, acts as a highly advanced search engine and brainstorming partner, often producing in-depth responses that seem—and often are—factual, relevant, and insightful.

But AI is not infallible. Its responses are limited by the data it was trained on, and because it relies on probability to create its answers, some of its “guesses” will inevitably be incorrect. AI is known to occasionally provide inaccurate or misleading answers, especially on complex or nuanced topics. Users must exercise caution by carefully checking and validating AI-generated content.

In summary, AI can be an incredibly useful tool to support—not replace—human expertise. Think of it like a highly competent assistant: it can’t do your job for you, but if you collaborate effectively, it may make your life easier.

AI Trends in Healthcare

AI is playing an increasingly significant role in healthcare as providers and administrators recognize its potential to streamline hospital administration, analyze complex medical data, assist healthcare providers, and more.

Key goals and potential benefits of AI in healthcare, as outlined in a recent study, include:

Improved patient experience
Improved caregiver experience
Reduced healthcare costs
Improved population health

While AI in healthcare is still in its early stages, research shows it already “empowers clinical decision-making, optimizes hospital operation and management, refines medical image analysis, and revolutionizes patient care and monitoring through AI-powered wearables.”

Experts anticipate AI use will be scaled in three phases. In the first phase, it will start to take over the “low-hanging fruit”: supporting imaging-heavy disciplines like radiology and ophthalmology, as well as the administrative tasks that take up so much of healthcare providers’ time. In the second phase, we are likely to see AI enabling greater home-based care that empowers patients and caregivers outside the hospital (think remote monitoring, virtual assistants, AI wearables, etc.). And third, experts predict AI will be increasingly integrated into clinical practice in alignment with findings from clinical trials. McKinsey writes that at this point, AI will be seen “as an integral part of the healthcare value chain, from how we learn, to how we investigate and deliver care, to how we improve the health of populations.” AI is expected to be particularly useful in preventative care, risk assessment, chronic illness care, and in-home care, but its potential uses are almost endless.

Here are a few notable current AI healthcare trends:

Between-session support: For patients who have questions or concerns between appointments, AI can provide information, make them feel heard, or escalate communications to the provider if needed.
- AI’s role: AI’s ability to engage in a two-way conversation helps extend the connection with the provider between face-to-face sessions, without taking up provider time and keeping patient costs low.
Mental and behavioral health: AI-powered mental health apps can assist patients dealing with non-urgent issues like managing stress, organizing thoughts, or seeking emotional support.
- AI’s role: AI can offer non-urgent guidance while respecting the provider’s expertise (and again, keeping patient costs low).
Nutrition and dietary planning: AI chatbots can assist patients in creating recipes, assessing ingredients and substitutions, and navigating particular food plans. Patients might prompt an AI chatbot to design a custom recipe based on the food in their fridge, or come up with a customized weekly meal plan based on their nutritional goals.
- AI’s role: It would take most healthcare professionals quite a bit of time and effort to provide such highly customized weekly recipe and meal prep info for each individual client; AI can do it in a few seconds.

Other fast-growing areas of AI adoption include scanning and organizing medical records, analyzing medical imaging and test results, and interpreting large healthcare datasets. We anticipate that AI use in healthcare will continue to become more sophisticated as the technology improves and the sector adapts to its many uses.

An Important Note

While AI may be a valuable healthcare aid, it does not replace professional medical care. Only a qualified medical professional can diagnose and prescribe, and anyone experiencing a medical emergency should go to the emergency room. Think of AI as an assistant that can augment doctors’ work and patients’ experience, helping the healthcare system run more efficiently and amplifying providers’ impact.

5 Practical AI Benefits for Health Coaches

As a health coach, you may have started to think of ways to use AI in your coaching practice—maybe you’re even incorporating it already. If used thoughtfully and paired with meaningful human connection, AI offers health coaches an effective and accessible tool for improved efficiency and client engagement.

Potential benefits for health coaches who use AI include:

Collaboration: Leverage AI as a creative brainstorming partner by tapping into its ability to find connections between ideas, answer complex questions, suggest solutions, and organize information.
Personalized Program Development: Analyze client preferences, track progress, and assess health metrics to help coaches develop more tailored recommendations.
Virtual Coaching and Chatbots: Extend client support and connection beyond your sessions, providing instant responses to common questions, sharing tips, and reminding clients of weekly goals.
Marketing Support: Generate content ideas, automate social media outreach, and analyze engagement metrics to help build your online presence and connect with potential clients.
Practice Management: Organize your coaching resources so they’re easier for both you and your clients to access; automate routine tasks like scheduling and follow-up; and simplify your day-to-day so you have more time to focus on direct client engagement.

When used with intention, AI can complement the way a health coach partners with clients, manages their practice, and facilitates lifestyle change. Coaches who collaborate with this new technology may be pleasantly surprised by the way AI’s always-on breadth and depth enhances their ability to make heart-centered, human connections—to the benefit of both client and coach.

An Important Note

AI can be helpful tool, but becoming over-reliant on it is a risk. AI is known to make occasional mistakes and generate false information, and it is unaware of its own errors and limitations. Use AI as a starting point or a sounding board, but always check the information it shares. AI is a tool, not a replacement for your own creativity, expertise, and critical thinking.

Popular AI Apps for Coaches

You may have already encountered or even experimented with AI-powered apps in your work as a coach. Even if you only try out one or two of these apps, familiarizing yourself with some of the most popular AI tools can help support your work in areas like client engagement, practice management, and personalizing client care:

ChatGPT: A free chatbot useful for brainstorming, answering questions, and organizing ideas, making it a versatile tool for content creation and client communication
Gemini: Formerly Bard, is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google. Like ChatGOT, it’s useful for brainstorming, answering questions, and organizing ideas.
Microsoft Copilot: A chatbot integrated into Microsoft products that can assist with drafting emails, organizing documents, and providing analytics to enhance productivity
Lark Health: Real-time, personalized nutrition coaching tool that provides feedback and recommendations based on users’ nutrition, sleep, fitness, and stress
MyFitnessPal: App containing AI-based food logging that tracks and analyzes food choices and nutrition and provides users with insights and feedback
Nudge Coach: A mobile app for tracking client progress and encouraging accountability, including AI-driven reminders and analytics that let coaches monitor adherence and motivate clients
SimplePractice: A practice management platform that incorporates AI for scheduling, billing, and client communication, helping coaches manage routine tasks more efficiently
Noom: Food tracking app that uses AI to support behavior change by analyzing user habits and providing tailored lessons, meal suggestions, and fitness tips that adapt as users progress toward goals
Flo: Period and sexual wellness app that leverages AI to analyze patterns in health data and offer personalized recommendations for users managing their cycles, hormones, and/or fertility

Through the thoughtful integration of technology with human insight, health coaches can turn AI into a valuable ally. Consider how you might leverage AI to deepen your impact and broaden the reach of your practice.

Ethical Considerations and Challenges

While AI offers considerable advantages, health coaches (and all users) should be mindful of its limitations and ethical concerns. If AI tools are to be used responsibly, a few key areas require critical consideration and careful action:

Data privacy: Not all AI complies with data privacy regulations like HIPAA, so coaches should ensure that client confidentiality is protected before using an AI tool. Additionally, all AI users should consider who is collecting their personal information, what is being done with it, and whether they are comfortable sharing their private data.
Environmental impact: AI in its current forms is not environmentally sustainable: it uses up a massive amount of energy and fresh water, emits hundreds of tons of carbon, and its negative impact is expected to escalate as AI use increases.
Bias: Because AI is trained on data that is created by humans, it can perpetuate any human biases based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. that are present in its data. The outputs AI generates based on biased data will inadvertently reproduce those biases and contribute to social harm.
Company skew: Another type of bias in AI is bias programmed in by the company that owns it. The company may program their tool however they like, and any skews to the tool’s output may not be apparent to users.
Accuracy: AI is limited by the data it is trained on and cannot provide reliable answers outside this dataset, though it may still try (these answers will often be incorrect information presented as if it were correct).
Scope of practice: AI does not abide by the health coach’s scope of practice and may attempt to diagnose, prescribe, give health advice, or otherwise act as a healthcare provider—which it is not qualified to do.
Depersonalization through over-reliance: While AI tools can be helpful, relying on them too heavily risks depersonalizing the coaching experience. No AI tool can replace a coach’s insight, critical thinking, and unique individual voice.
Threat of replacement: As AI grows increasingly sophisticated and effective, it is able to do the jobs of more human workers. This shift in the workforce may be done equitably in a way that enables greater human flourishing across all levels of society, or it may concentrate more wealth and power in the hands of those who control AI.
Trendiness: AI’s surge in popularity has led to a proliferation of tools and consumer applications, some of which have been developed without a strong ethical framework. Not all tools prioritize accuracy, privacy, or user safety.

As you consider the ethical implications of AI use, remember that incorporating this technology into your practice is optional. If you decide that the downsides outweigh the benefits, choosing not to use AI is perfectly valid.

Tips for Integrating AI into Health Coaching

An Important Note

ChatGPT, Gemini, and similar chatbots make great brainstorming partners and reviewers, but they don’t replace your critical thinking and authentic human voice. Experts recommend you use them to hone your original message and/or generate initial suggestions, rather than using them as a writer or keeping their content word-for-word. Be sure to double-check, edit, and adjust chatbot responses so they are accurate and sound like you.

ChatGPT Prompts For Health Coaches

Business strategy: “I am a newly-certified health coach specializing in gut health and healthy eating for families. I work in New England and am also trained as a chef and personal trainer. Please suggest a business strategy and some next steps for me.”
Marketing planning: “I’m an experienced health coach and need help with marketing planning for my coaching business. My business goals include securing 2 public speaking engagements in my community and converting 5 new people from my email list into coaching clients. I am active on Instagram and Facebook and also send a monthly wellness newsletter to my email list of 460 people. Based on this information, put a marketing plan together for me.”
Marketing communications: “I have drafted the following “About Me” webpage that promotes my health coaching services, with a goal of attracting new clients through search engine optimization. Please provide edits, with special attention to content flow, readability, marketing appeal, and SEO.” Then paste in your draft.
Summarizing information: “Please summarize the following document, focusing on insights that might be useful to me as a health coach working with a new client suffering from cognitive decline.” Then input the document.
Client communications: “I am a health coach. Please draft a friendly yet professional email to my new coaching client containing the following information:” and input any specific details you need included.
Client challenges: “I am a health coach and my client is struggling with sugar cravings. Please suggest motivational techniques I can try, questions I can ask them, and small habit adjustments can I suggest.”
Dietary constraints: “I need some help with weekly meal prep. My budget is $X, and I’m hoping to make 5 recipes that feed 4 people for 15 meals. We especially love soups and stews, and we also enjoy Thai, Indian, and Korean food. Please create a weekly meal plan and shopping list, and exclude anything containing dairy, gluten, corn, and pork.”

You may notice that some of these queries are quite specific, while others are more general. Some use AI as a starting point to spark ideas, and others bring AI in at the end of a process to review and polish content. As you become more comfortable using AI chatbots, you’ll develop a sense of where they’re most useful for different tasks and goals.

It’s essential to remember that your individual, human voice is necessary and irreplaceable. A chatbot cannot replicate the personal touch that sets your coaching apart. Think of AI as an assistant that can help you run your business, allowing you to focus more fully on the human connection that lies at the heart of effective coaching.

AI and Your Coaching Clients

Some of your clients may have a particular interest in integrating AI into their coaching journey. If you work with any of the following types of clients, consider discussing how you might incorporate AI into your work together:

Biohackers: Clients focused on optimizing longevity, analyzing and improving their gut microbiome, or making personalized changes based on gene testing may be particularly interested in AI’s analytical potential, as it can offer them new insights and support for their data-driven goals.
Clients with frequent questions between sessions: For clients who like to check in with you often, AI can help them feel supported between sessions. It can answer questions about topics like recipe ingredients, share basic health information, and even “listen” and respond empathetically.
Those making significant lifestyle changes: Major changes, like following an elimination diet or new movement routine, can be difficult to adjust to. AI can be a helpful tool for these clients—it can create customized strategies that make big changes more accessible, or even just send reminders to help them stay on track.

Bringing AI into the conversation with these clients can demonstrate your expertise and commitment to supporting their unique goals. While AI may be a valuable tool for some, it won’t be suitable for everyone, so use your judgment to determine when and how to introduce it thoughtfully.

AI is quickly becoming an important assistant and collaborator for many health coaches, who see its potential to assist in managing their practices, supporting clients, and tracking progress. But as this new technology becomes more widespread, it is essential to remember that AI should not replace human expertise or compassion (even as some companies attempt to build their own AI health coaches). Coaches can explore these tools thoughtfully to determine the most effective way to integrate AI into their practice, always with the goal of better meeting their clients’ needs, while preserving the integrity of their human-centered work.

The question of AI is a complex one. While it offers potentially transformative benefits to those who integrate it thoughtfully, its ethical issues and limitations present meaningful drawbacks. We envision a future in which responsible AI use helps coaches, clients, and the broader healthcare system thrive by amplifying what’s working, addressing what’s broken, and enabling humans to bring more humanity into healthcare.