The Coaching Profession’s Blind Spot
AI isn’t just disrupting industries. It’s disrupting the people who run them. And honestly, it’s about time.
If AI clears the field of the untrained, the unmentored, and the manifest-your-dreams crowd who mistake their own career for a coaching credential, good riddance. If it clears me out too, I can live with that.
I’d rather torch my own job than cling to the illusion of being untouchable.
Whenever I raise this in leadership circles, I get two reactions. From technologists: excitement about speed and scale. From coaches: panic about being replaced.
But denial won’t save us. AI is already reshaping leadership development in ways the coaching world refuses to admit. Where others see a threat, I see an opening.
I’ve spent years studying what I call the “confidence trap,” the way toxic coaching and cultish thinking prey on leaders by selling certainty no one can deliver. Ironically, AI may be the thing that finally breaks that cycle.
Where AI Excels
If AI keeps this up, I may as well fire myself. Machines are already outperforming humans in domains that matter most to leadership.
Take behavior data. AI can parse the digital exhaust we all leave behind. From meeting transcripts to email tone, it spots patterns that signal stress triggers or communication breakdowns long before a human coach could.
As Harvard Business School professor Karim Lakhani puts it, “AI won’t replace humans but humans with AI will replace humans without AI” (Harvard Business Review). But it’s not just about analysis.
Micro-coaching delivered through wearables and apps now nudges leaders in real time, helping them regulate under pressure, track progress, and sustain new habits. Midlevel managers, in particular, are weaving these tools into their own workflows, showing just how scalable these interventions already are.
And while human coaches get tired, distracted, or biased, AI never flinches. The feedback loop at 3 a.m. looks the same as the one at 3 p.m. Platforms like BetterUp are already deploying “AI coaching companions,” pairing stress data with prompts that guide behavior change.
From where I sit, the future isn’t machines crowding us out. It’s machines forcing us to confront just how far and how flawed our reach as humans really is.
Where AI Falls Short (For Now)
For all its speed and scale, AI still can’t touch the messy, fragile thing we call belonging. It can flag stress patterns in a leader’s speech, but it can’t sit with their shame or grief in a way that builds trust.
And when the stakes get personal, machines often stumble. Emotional AI routinely misfires for non-dominant identities or breaks down when the moment demands more than pattern matching (UCSC/Stanford). What comes out instead is something that feels robotic at best, tone-deaf at worst.
That’s the trap. AI can simulate empathy, but it can’t embody it. A leader’s story, including their upbringing, culture, and scars doesn’t fit neatly into data tokens. Without lived experience, machines will always risk reinforcing the blind spots they were trained on.
Which is why treating AI like plug-and-play therapy is reckless. Tech without reflection is as dangerous as coaching without accountability. Both reduce humanity to a script. Said another way, you strip out reflection and all you’re left with is a feedback loop that mimics care while missing the soul. That’s not coaching. It’s the ghost of it.
Where AI Could Surprise Us
Here’s where I split from most of my peers. I don’t buy the “coaches are irreplaceable” narrative. Every profession that swore it was disruption-proof, from law to medicine to engineering has been humbled. Why should coaching be any different? But I’m not calling for extinction so much as what I’m calling for is humility.
AI may evolve forms of empathy we don’t yet recognize. It may not feel human, but that doesn’t mean it won’t matter. Today, we’re seeing how repeated interactions with AI can shift how humans make emotional and social judgments (Nature Human Behaviour). It doesn’t stop at analyzing. It goes on to shape us.
That’s unsettling, but it’s also a clue. The confidence trap in coaching thrives on charisma and shortcuts. You’ve got gurus promising transformation without accountability. AI, by contrast, doesn’t care about bravado. Not yet, at least. Instead, it forces you to question whether or notyour habits actually changed.
And that may be where AI surprises us most. Not by replacing coaches, but by rescuing the work from its worst impulses. By forcing us to shed the gimmicks and get back to what actually matters.
If AI rescues leaders from the confidence trap and makes accountability non-negotiable, then maybe its real gift isn’t efficiency at all. It’s giving us a clearer shot at honesty, and that’s where growth finally begins.
The Human Edge
For all the noise about machines catching up to us, there are still things only humans can do. And they’re not small things.
Ambiguity, for one. Leaders don’t just need answers. They need space to sit with contradictions, doubts, and the parts of themselves they’d rather not say out loud. That’s not a feature you can download.
Call it what you want: belonging, connection, even just being seen. No algorithm can replicate the electricity of that moment in the room when someone feels they matter. That’s not sentiment. It’s survival. It decides whether people stay or quit, whether they show up motivated or already halfway out the door.
And yes, I’ll risk the loaded term: inclusive leadership. Not the poster-on-the-wall kind, but the kind that actually fuels innovation. It happens when people have room to be uncertain, to test ideas out loud, and to wrestle with what they don’t yet understand (Inclusive Leadership & Psychological Safety). Strip away the politics, and what you’re left with is stronger performance.
And then there’s cultural translation. I’ve coached leaders across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Power looks wildly different in each. But the need to feel relevant, trusted, and respected? That part never changes.
This is the work worth protecting. Not defending turf, not gatekeeping. Sharpening the human edge while we still can. Because if we can’t out-human the machines, what’s the point of any of this?
A Democratic Future
The real promise of AI isn’t in replacing humans. It’s in stripping away the exclusivity. Because executive coaching has long been a luxury, reserved for C-suites and corner offices.
But what happens when AI-powered companions give frontline managers the same real-time behavioral insights? When micro-feedback and habit tracking are as common as an iPhone?
This isn’t some futuristic pitch. It’s already happening in pockets (Fast Company). The only question left is whether the coaching profession will cling to scarcity or embrace reach.
If AI teaches us anything, it’s not how to be superhuman. It’s how to be human under pressure and form habits that actually stick, and with less ego in the way.
I’m confident the future isn’t coaches versus machines. It’s coaches who use machines to strip away toxic practices, and leaders who treat AI as an accountability partner, not a replacement for their humanity.
Clearing the Field
But access isn’t the only story here. AI is also about exposure. It has no patience for bravado, charisma, or smoke and mirrors. It measures what leaders actually do, not what they claim.
That means the confidence trap is running out of runway. The untrained, the unmentored, the “manifest-your-dreams” crowd, even the successful executives who confuse their résumés for coaching credentials. AI will smoke them out. The receipts don’t lie.
And maybe that’s the greatest disruption of all. Not the machines replacing us, but the machines forcing us to decide whether to sharpen the human edge or get cleared from the field.
