Why AI won’t replace human coaches
AI may offer the “correct” answer. But coaching helps a person discover the needed answer – the one they’re ready for
By
Graham Ward
Last Updated: Sep 17, 2025, 14:00 IST6 min
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My client, Maryam, sat in silence, eyes fixed on the corner of the room. The CFO of a biopharmaceutical company in the United Arab Emirates, she was normally a force of nature. Moments earlier, she had spoken about her team’s dysfunction with surgical clarity: low trust, politics, patchy performance and unspoken tensions.
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Her voice was calm, just as I had come to know her: controlled and practised, her words always carefully chosen. Her silence was therefore unusual. As I carefully repeated back her last sentence (“I suppose I’ve just learned not to expect much from people"), I saw her look up; something seemed to shift. Her eyes narrowed, as if to check if I was being facetious. It was my tone, however, that had mattered. The atmosphere in the room seemed to become thick.
There was no specific new insight in the words themselves: they were hers. I hadn’t given her an answer. I had simply been with her, present and with good intention. True, I had taken a risk and simply repeated back what she said, without providing the context of why. Yet, I saw her eyes moisten, her body soften and then came a long outbreath. With that, the first authentic interchange of the session began, about her disappointment, loneliness, guardedness and the invisible cost of an aspirational C-level job. My intervention had caused her to consider and reflect more deeply on how cynical she had become, and how quickly.
This moment could not have been produced by a prompt or predicted by a model. It was not the "right" answer that mattered (as you see, I had not given her an answer), but the human connection that unlocked it.
Coaching is not a content delivery system
As AI systems evolve in speed and capability, many are asking: can they replace coaching? After all, they synthesise data, offer well-structured frameworks, pose powerful questions and even simulate emotional responses – often very accurately, almost scarily so. Many people report having a “relationship” with their AI tool of choice. For learning, productivity and even aspects of decision-making, AI is truly a formidable companion.But coaching, at its core, is not about an answer. Coaching is relational. It unfolds in the subtle interplay between two humans, marked by trust, emotional attunement and presence. The real value of coaching often arises not from what is said, but how it is heard, and by whom. AI may offer the “right” answer. But coaching helps a person discover the answer they’re ready for. The difference is everything.
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In coaching, the distinction between the correct answer and the needed answer is often misunderstood. The “correct” answer might be a strategic insight, a behavioural model or a psychological concept. These are, of course, helpful, but rarely transformational, mainly because they come from the coach.
What the client needs, in each moment, might be:
- Permission to “not know” or what John Keats called “negative capability”.
- The courage to feel something they have avoided.
- Recognition of an emotional truth they have long suppressed.
- A mirror held up not to fix them, but to see them.
Also read: 5 ways to improve diversity training, according to a new study
Relational intelligence cannot be simulated
Coaching being a relational craft makes it dependent on subtle attunement: tone, gesture, micro-expressions and the shared emotional field between two people. This attunement is often the very vehicle, or the container, of transformation. In-person coaching allows for: Read More
Co-regulation of nervous systems: The felt presence of another calm, grounded human can bring someone out of emotional overwhelm and into safety.Embodied empathy: Physical presence amplifies the empathic connection. Holding silence, a nod or leaning in can communicate safety or challenge more powerfully than words. It beckons or invites the other person, without a word needing to be spoken.
Somatic awareness: A coach can notice body-language shifts in real-time and integrate these into the coaching process. Breathing patterns, posture and tension all become part of the inquiry. Moreover, a coach might invite the coachee into a breathwork exercise if they sense stress.
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Spontaneity and intuition: In my experience, the most powerful coaching moves arise from intuition: an emergent, unrepeatable moment that requires deep human sensitivity and practice.
AI, however advanced, does not inhabit a body. It cannot join a client in that mystery of unfolding awareness. Its outputs, while impressive, are not relational.
In-person coaching implicates the coach not just as a facilitator, but as an instrument. Manfred Kets de Vries, the eminent therapist and leadership expert, invites his students to “use themselves as instruments, almost as emotional barometers”. Their energy, presence and relational stance contribute to the client’s experience in ways that cannot be separated from the work itself. Moreover, different coaches produce different effects, not just because of their technique, but because of who they are and how they show up. It is all craft.
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Academic research on what psychotherapist Edward Bordin called the “therapeutic alliance” shows that the relationship itself is the strongest predictor of positive outcomes. It’s the shared goals, agreed tasks and quality of connection that matter, not just the intervention. Coaching, though distinct from therapy, shares this principle. The human presence matters, not only for what is said, but for who is with you, when it is said, and what is felt.
AI as the support function; coaching as a human artform
There’s no question that AI can and already does support coaching. It can certainly assist with transcribing and summarising sessions, tracking goals and nudging behaviour, providing frameworks and learning resources, or even simulating practice environments for coaching students.In these ways, AI augments or even amplifies coaching, but it does not replace it. To conflate support with substitution is akin to pretending that the manager of a football team could also play the game. A support role is just that: to get the most from the actor, but not to replace them. It is a relationship of discovery.
To be coached by a human is to feel accompanied. It is to sit across from someone who is willing to be affected by your story, your struggle, your professional becoming. As many have experienced through their own coaching paths, the ethical stance of the coach is not to fix the client, but to accompany them in service of their growth.
AI may one day become a “master of simulation” – but coaching is not simulation. It is real-time co-creation. It is the dance of trust, vulnerability, challenge and compassion. The impact is not limited to the cognitive. It is emotional, existential and, when well done, even spiritual. To lose that, to mistake intelligence for intimacy, or algorithms for attunement, is to strip coaching of its soul.
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At the end of that session with Maryam, she looked up, shook her head and said quietly, “I can’t quite believe what happened there.” She wasn’t referring to insight or advice. She meant the silence, the vulnerability she felt and shared, the presence, the fact that someone had finally seen her. Or rather, she had allowed herself to be seen.
That is what in-person coaching does. It meets the person in whom the problem is contained, not simply the problem. In doing so, it reveals the kind of growth that no machine could ever hope to evoke.
This article is republished courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge, the portal to the latest business insights and views of The Business School of the World. Copyright INSEAD 2025
First Published: Sep 17, 2025, 14:00
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