Coaching in the AI Era: What the Remaining 10% Actually Is

AI-enhanced coaching is one of the most significant shifts happening in this industry right now, and it deserves a serious look, not a dismissive one. It's making coaching more accessible, more consistent, and available in moments a human coach simply can't be. Employees who'd never have had access to coaching before now do. That's a real, meaningful shift, not a gimmick, and anyone in this field who dismisses it outright isn't paying close enough attention.

Research from The Conference Board found that AI can now handle up to 90% of day-to-day coaching functions: structured goal-setting, task follow-through, skills practice. That's a genuinely large share of what coaching, on paper, looks like. But the same research is precise about where the remaining 10% sits, and it's worth taking seriously rather than treating as a rounding error. Human expertise remains critical for emotionally charged, political, or values-based conversations, the moments that actually shape how a leader holds up under real pressure.

I want to describe what that 10% actually looks like in practice, because it's easy to gloss over in the abstract.

When I'm sitting with a client who is genuinely struggling, the most useful thing I can offer often isn't a framework or a next step. It's presence. Holding the space without rushing to fix it. Asking a question at exactly the right moment, one that lets them arrive at their own answer rather than mine. Knowing when to stay quiet, when to lean in, and recognising that a single well-placed question can do more than any structured model. None of that is procedural. It can't be scripted in advance, because it depends entirely on what's happening in that specific room, with that specific person, in that specific moment.

A recent PLOS One study looked at this directly, comparing HR leaders' experience of AI-mediated coaching against human coaching. What it found was precise: AI accelerates goal clarification and structures tasks well, but without what researchers term "coaching presence," interactions stayed transactional. Motivation weakened. Tasks were set but rarely internalised.

Having trained in psychotherapy, I recognised this immediately. It's the same territory as the therapeutic alliance, the relationship between practitioner and client built on bond, shared goals, and trust. It's been studied in clinical psychology for decades, and it remains one of the strongest predictors of whether real, lasting change actually happens, regardless of which technique or model is being used on top of it. Coaching research is only now arriving at a conclusion clinical psychology reached a long time ago: the relationship itself is not a supporting factor in the work. It is the work.

This matters more than the stats alone suggest. A Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence survey across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia found nearly 70% of C-suite executives are seriously considering leaving their roles for ones that better support their wellbeing. Not because the work itself changed. Because the pressure of holding it all together, largely alone, eventually catches up with anyone, however capable.

That's precisely the territory the 10% occupies, and by the Conference Board's own framing, it may be territory AI isn't built to reach. Not because the technology isn't sophisticated. Because presence, judgement, and trust aren't procedural. They're relational, and relationships don't automate.

None of this is an argument against the tools. The 90% AI now handles well is genuinely useful, and I'd encourage any leader to make use of it. But knowing which 10% still needs a human, one trained to sit inside real discomfort, ask the question no one else will, and recognise the difference between a leader who's stretched and one who's quietly breaking, is not a small distinction. It's the difference between coaching that produces a task list and coaching that produces real change.

That's the part of this work I focus on. Not replacing the tools a leader already has access to. Adding the depth that has to sit alongside them.

Anil Arora is the founder of Arora Coaching, providing psychology-led executive coaching for senior leaders across the UAE and MENA region. Drawing on 25 years across clinical psychology and corporate coaching, he works with C-suite executives and organisations on leadership development and performance under pressure. www.aroracoaching.com