As AI capabilities continue to progress, how do we adapt as coaches and consultants.
The truth is, it’s hard to predict exactly how AI will affect work and society. We might predict general trends, but the specifics may surprise us.
Some tasks will be more challenging for AI to do, like complex or precise physical work, while other work that we thought was uniquely human territory are already being challenged.
What I mean by ‘challenged’ is essentially if it’s cheaper, faster and more conveniently.
Here’s how I think AI could change how we approach coaching today and the future.
Surface-level or Deeper Coaching
Can empathy or intuition be coded? And if so, would we care if it’s simulated rather than real empathy or intuition?
It’s fundamentally human to be with someone who’s struggling and to feel subtle shifts in their energy, or catching that moment when their whole posture changes because they’ve just understood, or that ‘aha’ moment.
We can’t deny that some people are already finding value in AI coaching tools. They’re getting insights, working through problems, even experiencing breakthroughs.
What’s the difference between transactional coaching and deep coaching? If you’re just helping someone organise their goals or providing basic accountability, maybe an AI could do it faster and cheaper.
AI won’t say much if you miss deadlines, it won’t have off days, and it won’t charge you anything.
But transformation is often unpredictable. It happens in the spaces between words, in the way someone’s voice changes when they talk about their deeper fears, in the moment when they realise they’ve been telling themselves the same story for years.
It happens when another human being holds space for contradictions without trying to fix them immediately.
Human Accountability Relationship
There’s also something real about human accountability.
When a robot reminds you to exercise, you can choose to ignore it without consequence.
When another person asks about your progress, there’s weight to that question. There’s a relationship at stake. There’s the knowledge that someone real is invested in your journey, and that matters in ways that are difficult to measure.
It’s a fundamentally human need to be seen and witnessed in our growth.
An AI might track your metrics perfectly, but will it celebrate your victories with joy or be with you in disappointment when things don’t go as planned.
AI as an Amplifier
With today’s capabilities we can think of AI as an amplifier rather than a replacement of our core coaching activities. Use it to handle admin work, generate ideas, assessments, or help track client progress between sessions.
This frees you up to do deep coaching, to focus on the truly transformational work that happens in human connection.
Clients don’t just want surface-level coaching. They can get tips from many online sources and life hacks from apps. They want someone who can see them fully, who can sit with their complexity, who brings not just techniques but helps develop their personal wisdom.
The Subtle Elements
Coaches and consultants who add most value will bring their empathy, their ethics, their intuition, their capacity for authentic connection.
They understand that the coaching process is about the deeper work of becoming who you’re meant to be.
This means embracing the emotional and subtle aspects that AI doesn’t currently do. Like reading between the lines, sensing what’s not being said, providing the kind of presence that allows people to feel truly heard.
We Need a New Kind of Humility
Not the humility of “I must know everything,” but the humility of “I’m human, and so are you, and maybe that’s exactly what this process needs.” Be comfortable with uncertainty, with the unpredictability of real human change.
The coaching mindset itself, that ability to ask powerful questions, to hold space without judgment, to see potential where others see problems, these remain fundamentally human skills.
Whether learned through AI assistance or traditional methods, these capabilities will always be valuable because they emerge from our shared humanity.
Staying Human
People have always used technology to make things cheaper, faster, and more convenient. But as we keep chasing that goal, it’s unavoidable that some work will disappear.
Could AI eventually develop something that looks like empathy, wisdom, and relational depth? Maybe. If that day comes, we’ll be living in such a fundamentally different world that worrying about coaching jobs might be the least of our concerns. Perhaps we’ll have moved to some post-scarcity economy where the nature of work itself has been redefined.
But for now, there’s still something irreplaceable about one human helping another through growth and change. There’s still something powerful in the coaching relationship when it’s working well, that combination of trust, challenge, and support that helps people become more themselves.
I would advise not to worry about competing with AI. Instead, double down on being authentically human. Go deeper in your work. Trust your intuition. Use the AI tools that help you serve your clients better, but never forget that your humanity is your greatest asset.
The future might be uncertain, but the need for human connection, understanding, and transformation isn’t going anywhere. That’s our territory, and it’s worth defending.
