I was in a conversation the other day, and we were laughing (but also sighing) about how everyone seems to be a coach these days. It feels like the label “coach” has lost some of its appeal – overshadowed by an endless stream of coaching programs and platforms cropping up to meet the soaring demand for support, self-development, and guidance.
Tech-led coaching has its value and place in this ecosystem; it’s not “bad” or somehow lesser, but it’s different, with its own limitations.
With an influx of tech-driven companies, we’re seeing coaching offered at scale through digital platforms. Coaching sessions that might once have been tailored, 90-minute 1:1 conversations are now often delivered as part of a pre-designed program, packaged and “outsourced” through apps, AI prompts, or group interventions.
It’s coaching on a conveyor belt – accessible, yes, but often stripped of the depth and human touch that make coaching valuable in the first place. And let’s face it: there’s no shortage of questionable coaches flooding the space.
Our approach to coaching is different.
For us, it’s about community, relationships, and collective growth. Tech can absolutely support coaching, but it’s never a substitute for the deeply human, relational, and sometimes messy process that good coaching is.
Coaching is emergent. It’s unpredictable and shaped by the unique interplay between people. Done well, it can’t just be reduced to a sequence of nudges in an app or a series of pre-packaged prompts from AI.
There’s a risk in over-relying on tech to deliver coaching at scale. While tech solutions, like AI-powered apps, are great for accessibility, they can easily become reductive, turning meaningful behaviour change into a series of algorithmic prompts. AI coaches, for example, are powered by language models and “learn” through a process that’s hard to control and understand. There’s already been much discussion around the potential bias and unintended consequences of AI coaching. It’s a system that is inherently limited by its input, and without careful guidance, we risk stripping coaching of its core essence.
Of course, we understand the demand for coaching is growing, and the pressure to scale seems to point toward tech as the answer. And while tech-led coaching has an important role to play in making support widely accessible, it can’t replicate the depth of human-centred, relational coaching.
The best coaching doesn’t just “scale”; it adapts, stays human-centred, and recognises that real growth doesn’t happen in a preset sequence of steps – it unfolds in the spaces where people genuinely connect.