The Impact of AI on People, Roles and Identity
The conversation about AI has moved far beyond automation. What was once a technical discussion is now a deeply human one. As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries, organisations, and economies, we’re entering a phase where the biggest shift may not be technological — but psychological.
AI is changing jobs, yes. But more profoundly, it’s changing the way people see themselves in the world of work.
Tasks that once defined an individual’s value — writing, analysis, research, administration, even strategic thinking — are increasingly being handed to machines. These tools are not replacing humans wholesale, but they are altering what it means to contribute, to lead, and to be ‘good’ at your job.
This presents a fundamental challenge: how do people maintain a sense of identity and worth when the landscape around them is shifting so rapidly?
We’re already seeing the signs:
- Job insecurity in previously stable professions
- Performance anxiety fuelled by the speed and precision of AI tools
- Imposter syndrome as people compare themselves to machine outputs
- Change fatigue as businesses continually restructure to adapt
- Loneliness and disconnection as roles become more individualised or remote
It’s not just technical upskilling that’s needed — it’s emotional resilience, adaptability, and support to process the psychological impact of change.
The Role of Coaching in a Shifting Landscape
Against this backdrop, coaching is emerging as a vital — and evolving — support mechanism. But it must respond, too.
Historically, coaching has focused on performance, clarity, goal-setting, and leadership growth. These will still matter. But in the age of AI, people need something deeper. They need help navigating the internal dissonance that comes with external transformation.
This is where coaching can play a crucial role — not as a luxury service, but as a strategic capability.
Coaching for Identity, Not Just Output
In a world where many outputs are now automated, who you are becomes more important than what you do.
People are being forced to ask:
- If AI can do 70% of my job, what’s left for me?
- How do I find meaning and connection when my role changes every quarter?
- What makes me valuable beyond my outputs?
These are identity questions. They sit at the core of a person’s self-worth, and they’re not answered by training alone. Coaches who can support clients to rebuild identity, make peace with uncertainty, and reconnect to intrinsic value will be in growing demand.
Supporting Leaders to Lead Through Ambiguity
For leaders, the pressure is different but equally intense. They must lead teams through disruption, implement new systems, and maintain morale — often while questioning their own relevance.
Many leaders are silently overwhelmed. They may be expected to role-model adaptability and excitement about innovation while internally grappling with fear, confusion, or even grief for the way things used to be.
Coaching offers a rare space where they can drop the performance, explore their internal landscape, and develop the emotional regulation and clarity required to lead with authenticity through complexity.
Helping People Navigate the Change Curve
Most change management models acknowledge that humans go through predictable emotional stages during periods of disruption: denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment. But very few organisations build in structured, ongoing support for this journey.
Coaching offers a way to walk alongside people as they move through this curve — not rushing them, not fixing them, but helping them process, make meaning, and move forward with intention.
In this sense, coaches become change companions, rather than just performance enhancers.
Beyond Motivation: Building Psychological Safety and Adaptability
It’s tempting to assume the answer to change resistance is motivation or mindset work. But the truth is more complex.
When people feel under threat — whether through job insecurity, loss of control, or performance pressures — the nervous system responds. Fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses can take hold. Decision-making becomes harder. Productivity dips. Confidence crumbles.
The best coaches in this era will understand how to work with the emotional and physiological impact of change. They will help clients return to a regulated state so they can respond wisely rather than react instinctively.
This requires a coach to go beyond surface-level conversation and develop a solid understanding of human behaviour, identity structures, emotional triggers, and psychological safety. It’s not therapy — but it is grounded, structured, human-focused work.
What This Means for Coach Training
As the role of coaching deepens, so must the training behind it.
Coaches who want to work effectively in this environment need more than questions and models. They need methods that equip them to:
- Understand how identity is formed and how it can be reshaped
- Help clients break ingrained behavioural patterns
- Spot and work with emotional dysregulation
- Support people in high-stakes roles without burning out themselves
- Maintain presence, neutrality, and ethical boundaries in high-pressure environments
It’s not about adding more tools for the sake of it. It’s about becoming a complete practitioner — one who can confidently coach the whole human, not just their to-do list.
The Future of Coaching is Human-Centric
If AI represents scale, speed, and precision, coaching must offer the opposite: presence, depth, and human connection.
Coaching won’t compete with machines — it will complement them. But only if it evolves.
The coaches who thrive in the years ahead won’t be those with the best sales funnels or the most content. They’ll be the ones who understand people deeply, meet them where they are, and walk with them through change — without needing to fix, perform, or pretend.
The future may be automated.
But the need for human insight, reflection, and transformation isn’t going anywhere.
In fact, it’s only just beginning.
As the demands of the workplace change, so must the profession of coaching. The assumption that coaching is purely about performance, productivity, or accountability no longer reflects what clients need most.
The people entering coaching conversations today are not just looking for better results. They are looking for stability in ambiguity, clarity in chaos, and meaning in the midst of change.
This is calling coaching into a new phase — one that requires depth, structure, and a different kind of readiness.
From Skillset to Self-Concept
The skills someone brings to a role used to define their worth. But AI is now absorbing many of those skills. In this context, the more pressing question is: Who am I without this skill? or What do I bring that can’t be replicated?
That’s a self-concept conversation. And it’s one coaching is uniquely positioned to support — but only if the coach is equipped to handle it.
To coach at this level, practitioners must be trained to explore and gently challenge:
- The roles and masks people wear to feel secure
- The beliefs they’ve inherited about their value and identity
- The conditioned behaviours that feel safe, but no longer serve
- The narratives they hold about failure, change, and success
This goes well beyond asking powerful questions. It requires a level of psychological understanding, emotional attunement, and methodical thinking that isn’t always found in standard coach training programmes.
Why Human-Centric Coaching Matters More Than Ever
Human-centric coaching isn’t about being soft or sentimental. It’s about being rigorous in understanding the human system.
In a period of rapid transition, human-centric coaching brings:
- Stability – creating a space where people can pause, reflect, and feel anchored
- Integration – helping people align their thoughts, emotions, and actions
- Perspective – shining a light on what’s right, even in the mess
- Direction – supporting action that comes from clarity, not panic
- Presence – offering an unhurried, judgement-free experience in a world that rarely slows down
This kind of coaching supports resilience, not resistance. Growth, not just grit.
What Organisations Are Starting to Notice
Organisations are beginning to understand that successful change isn’t just about strategy or systems — it’s about how people respond, behave, and adapt.
And while AI can improve processes, it can’t build trust. It can’t help someone process grief for a lost role. It can’t offer perspective on a leadership blind spot. It can’t help a team work through the discomfort of transition.
Coaching can.
More progressive organisations are therefore moving from seeing coaching as a remedial tool to viewing it as a strategic asset — particularly when delivered by practitioners trained to work beyond surface-level behaviours.
They’re asking questions like:
- How do we support our people through identity shifts?
- What’s our approach to emotional fatigue in times of change?
- How do we equip leaders to model clarity and calm?
- Who is helping our teams process and grow, not just perform?
These questions signal a shift in how coaching is viewed — and in what kind of coaching is needed.
Coaching Needs Standards, Not Shortcuts
This shift also brings a responsibility: coaching must grow up.
As demand increases, there’s a risk of supply outpacing quality. Short-form, surface-level coach training can leave practitioners ill-equipped to meet the deeper challenges clients are bringing.
The industry needs robust, structured development that ensures coaches can:
- Coach without assuming, projecting, or rescuing
- Work with identity and emotion while staying within ethical boundaries
- Hold steady when clients are dysregulated, overwhelmed or unclear
- Bring clarity without imposing answers
- Regulate their own nervous systems so they don’t absorb client stress
These aren’t nice-to-have capabilities — they’re essentials for working with real humans, in real moments of change.
Without this rigour, coaching risks becoming irrelevant at the very moment it’s most needed.
The Future of Coaching Is Already Here
The coaching profession isn’t waiting for AI to arrive — it’s already responding to the world it’s creating.
People are asking different questions.
Organisations are facing deeper challenges.
And coaches are being invited to step up and meet them.
This doesn’t mean abandoning the foundations of coaching.
It means building on them — with insight, structure, and a deep respect for what it means to be human in uncertain times.
The future of coaching lies not in selling confidence, or promising fast wins.
It lies in developing the capability to coach people through complexity, with care, clarity, and skill.
Closing Reflection
AI will change how we work. That’s inevitable.
But it will also change how we see ourselves — and each other.
Coaching, at its best, supports that transition. It honours the full human experience, without rushing it. It holds space for identity to be redefined, for values to be revisited, and for action to come from a place of integrity.
That’s the opportunity in front of the profession right now.
To be ready.
To be rigorous.
To be human.
