If AI Can Coach, What’s the Role of Human Coaches?
This question came up in a recent hub call with our coaching community at THC. It wasn’t a neat debate about whether AI will or won’t replace coaching but we did start with the provocation ‘Is 1:1 coaching dead?’. There was excitement in the room, but also uncertainty, curiosity and, if I’m honest, some fear. As we talked the conversation moved toward the question: If AI can do some things we associate with coaching, what does that reveal about what human coaching is really for?
As it’s International Coaching Week this week, we thought it was a great time to share our response to that…
Some aspects of coaching may well become increasingly supported by AI, and I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. Goal clarification, reflection prompts, accountability nudges, even forms of thinking partnership around relatively defined challenges may become more widely available. In many ways, that could democratise support that has often been relatively elite. For too long, coaching has often sat with senior leaders or those organisations willing to invest heavily in it. If technology broadens access to developmental support, that feels like progress. It may absorb some of the more transactional elements of coaching while raising the value of deeper human work.
One of the things I said on the call was, 'sometimes you simply need another human being to witness your thoughts, feelings and experiences'. That may sound simple, but I think it captures something profound. So much of meaningful coaching happens not in the question itself, but in trust, presence, intuition, silence, noticing what is happening beneath the words, and creating a space where something difficult or true can emerge. Insight can be generated in many places. Transformation, in my experience, often happens in relationship. Perhaps we could make the argument that coaching was never simply about asking the right questions.
I see a potential future where this raises the bar for coaches. If some surface-level coaching work becomes augmented or replaced, what remains may be the work that is more transformational in nature. I can imagine this putting even greater value on somatic work, systems coaching, meaning-making, helping people navigate complexity and paradox, rather than 'just solve problems'. In that sense, AI may not dilute coaching so much as clarify it. It may push us further toward the work that only humans can do well.
I also think systems coaching deserves its own place in this conversation.
Workplaces are moving through change at a pace many people have not experienced before. AI is only part of that. People are navigating restructures, shifts in identity at work, uncertainty about roles, and in some cases real grief about what is changing or being lost. Much of that is systemic human work. It is about how teams process change together, how relationships hold under pressure, how people make sense of uncertainty without becoming overwhelmed by it. We are seeing evidence that systems coaching has an even bigger role to play here.
A theme that has been coming out of our work for over a year now is that the more artificial intelligence grows, the more human capabilities may rise in value. On the call we talked about presence, discernment, relational maturity, courage and consciousness as qualities of great coaches and also capabilities that coaching encourages in coachees. In the past, coaching was seen primarily as a performance intervention which I think we've moved past (to an extent). The future? I see a world where coaching is a practice that happens in relationship that develops human capability.
So no, we don’t think 1:1 coaching is dead. I hope access to coaching-like support will widen and I think the bar for human coaches will rise.
The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as 'partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential'. It’s a definition that has served the profession well and I think we need more language as the landscape transforms.
At THC, we found ourselves imagining coaching more like this:
Coaching is partnering with people and systems in a thought-provoking, relational and embodied process that deepens awareness, expands choice and supports courageous action in complexity. It is a space where people can be witnessed, challenged and supported to grow, individually and collectively, in ways that lead to sustainable change.
That feels, to me, like something I want to be a part of, especially in a world of AI.
How does that definition sit with you?
Rox x