After months of coming to terms with the reality of cyberattacks (just look at M&S and Jaguar Land Rover), geopolitical and global uncertainty, and workplace unease, the end of the year is a natural strategic checkpoint – an opportunity to reflect, review, rest and recharge.
For most businesses, executive coaching included, however, it is the prevalence of AI, how to integrate it into operational systems, and ultimately how to manage it that have become a focus for future success or failure in 2026.
AI is already being used in executive coaching, but hasn’t (yet) taken over. It can transform aspects of the coaching process, including admin and operational support, assessment and analytics, reflection and self-development, and scalability.
But AI doesn’t possess that emotional intelligence or human connection of a personal executive coach.
Intuition is one of the most powerful aspects of coaching. It involves responding in the moment to something a coachee has just said. That thought and that moment can be fostered, nurtured, and explored by a coach on an individual level, whereas AI follows patterns derived from strings of anonymous data. How does AI interpret the unplanned question or mental leap that is so deeply human and so much a part of a coaching session?
I would go further and say that AI lacks moral judgement, a personal history, and a coaching ‘soul’. Over-relying on AI can dehumanise the coaching process, raising difficult ethical concerns around data privacy and transparency.
Ultimately, a coach’s role is to steer personal growth and leadership presence, and a human guide or critical friend who offers candid, non-judgmental, analytical conversation still rates higher than a software programme, however powerful it might be.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a place for AI in coaching. It can take over the more transactional and admin-heavy elements of coaching. But for now, AI does not replace the human-centric, deeper transformational work of an executive coach. As the world of work gravitates more and more towards supercomputers offering to think for you, I would even say that we are now needed more than ever!
Happy Christmas, and a very prosperous New Year.
