AI Can Teach. You Can Transform: The Future of Coaching in an AI World
There’s a massive shift happening under our noses, and if you’ve been paying attention, you can feel it. The coaching and online business world is going through an identity crisis, and most people haven’t caught up yet.
AI has democratised information so quickly that the old way of selling expertise is crumbling in real time. For years we’ve sold information: frameworks, formulas, blueprints, strategies. But now, people can get all of that in seconds, often better packaged and more up to date than what most coaches are selling. ChatGPT can write your launch emails, map your course and probably give you a meal plan while it’s at it.
The information era has peaked. The new currency in coaching is transformation, the kind that doesn’t come from information alone.
And I’ve watched this shift up close, especially through things like my in-person retreat, Mansion, where the growth has nothing to do with consuming more and everything to do with who you become inside the experience.
The Information Hangover: Why Coaches Are Losing Their Audience
We’ve all bought courses that promised the world and delivered another folder of videos that we swore we’d come back to later. There’s responsibility on both sides of that, from the client who buys on a high and never follows through, to the coach who sells with big promises but never thinks about what happens after the Stripe notification hits.
People have an information hangover. They’ve realised that more information doesn’t automatically mean more action or more zeros in their bank account. In the past five years, I’ve seen so many trends come and go. I’ve bought into many of them and guess what? I’ve been left feeling like I do every time I buy a luxury skincare product, wowed by the advertising but in real life the product does nothing to minimise my enlarged pores.
And honestly? People are over it.
Tired of signing up for courses that overpromise and underdeliver. Tired of feeling like you’re left carrying a watermelon while being told it worked for me. Tired of yet another login password to forget.
Coaches are fatigued too, welcoming clients who arrive with the best of intentions then get overwhelmed the minute they’re asked to do something that stretches them beyond what they’ve done before.
This is a pattern playing out across the entire coaching industry.
They don’t need just another framework from you. They need a feeling.
Because when information is everywhere and almost free, the only thing that will set you apart now is how you make people feel.
For my clients, they’re looking to feel courageous, audacious and in control. That’s why I don’t sell information anymore. I sell transformation.
The Integration Gap: Where Real Coaching Transformation Happens
Here’s where most offers fall apart: between what’s promised and what’s experienced.
When integration is missing, your clients don’t feel the change you promised. They log in a few times and start ghosting. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t know how to make what you taught or uploaded actually work for them.
Notice when people start dropping off your programme or stop engaging in your group. That’s not necessarily a motivation problem. It’s an integration problem.
Integration is where transformation actually happens. It’s the part that takes information out of the head and into action. It’s the conversations, the practice, the reflection, the a-ha moments. It’s messy, it’s stretchy and it’s where knowledge actually blooms into power and banging testimonials.
This is the piece most online coaches and course creators are missing, and it’s the piece clients are craving more than ever.
From Education to Embodiment in the AI Era
Most of us built our businesses in the pre-ChatGPT era. We taught what we knew, packaged our expertise and delivered value the best way we could. And for a while, that worked.
But people have evolved. They don’t just want to learn anymore, they want to live it.
This isn’t about shaming the old way, it’s about expanding beyond it. This next chapter is about creating spaces where people don’t just know more, they become more.
If you’re selling information, build in the facilitation of integration. Create spaces for reflection, feedback and embodiment. Because when people truly integrate what they learn, transformation isn’t a buzzword. It’s a felt experience. It’s in their actions, their energy, their results.
That’s what builds loyalty. That’s what creates life-changing outcomes that everyone benefits from.
What Coaching Clients Really want in 2026
The truth is, information isn’t scarce anymore, it’s everywhere. We can all ask ChatGPT for any information with a cherry on top, in Welsh. So people aren’t paying just for access to your knowledge, they’re paying for the human experience that helps them do something with it.
They’re paying for the conversation that sparks courage. The environment that pulls their potential forward. The energy that makes them feel audacious.
That’s what coaching, mentoring and leadership are returning to: not the transfer of information, but the translation of it, helping people turn what they know into something better.
AI can give people information, but only you can give them your unique experience, your presence, your ability to see what they can’t see in themselves yet.
I’ve seen this play out in my own business. My recent in-person retreat wasn’t about teaching more information, it was about creating an unforgettable experience whose side effects were visceral. It wasn’t about what you received on a flip chart, it was about who you were becoming while you were there.
It sold out. And within hours of returning home, people had already claimed spaces for next year’s retreat, a full 12 months out.
One woman came for business strategy. She left having transformed years of crippling anxiety in four days, something she hadn’t been able to shift through therapy or courses. Another realised her vision was far bigger than she’d allowed herself to dream. As she put it: You will learn and develop more in four days than you would have in five years.
That’s not information. That’s integration. That’s what happens when you stop collecting knowledge and create an experience that helps your clients start embodying who they need to become.
Because that’s what people are craving now when they can get their information from their laptop, experiences that change them, not just educate them.
The Rebirth of Coaching: The Future of the Industry in an AI World
So no, this isn’t the death of coaching. It’s the rebirth of it.
The ones who will stand out now aren’t the ones shouting the loudest online, they’re the ones creating the most resonance, online and off.
AI can teach. But you can help people transform.
And in a world where everyone has access to information, transformation is what people will always pay for.
The coaching industry isn’t dying, it’s evolving. And those who understand that transformation trumps information will be the ones leading the way.
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About Leanne
I’m Leanne, an Audacity and Big Deal Identity Activator for ambitious women who are ready to stop chasing strategy and start becoming the woman who gets everything she wants because she backs herself fully. As a 4/6 Splenic Projector, I’m here to hold a mirror to your power, help you see what’s always been there and activate the courage to live it out loud. I create cinematic, immersive coaching experiences that move beyond information into transformation because success isn’t something you chase, it’s something you decide you’re having.
Learn more at leannesia.com.