11/02/2026
AI can answer your question in seconds. It can't hold the silence that lets you answer it yourself.
2026 brought a wave of research on AI coaching. Randomized trials put human coaches and AI chatbots head to head on goal attainment, wellbeing and self-efficacy, and a Stanford study released August 4, 2026 linked AI companions to increased loneliness and lower well-being. The tools are useful. The relationship is the edge.
Lyssa deHart, MCC, shared one line from a client after a 30-minute coaching session on a painful topic. I can't stop thinking about it.
"I felt that the insights and learning were mine." (A client of Lyssa deHart, MCC, from her article "The MCC Mindset: The Six Essential Qualities in Coaching Mastery")
That is the whole job.
Lyssa's Six Essential Qualities of MCC coaching are not steps, skills or tools. They are ways of being… Partnering instead of steering, inviting instead of directing, slowing down, and letting silence do its work.
She uses an analogy I love. Your own vacation photos pull you straight back into the moment, the smells, the sounds, the light. Someone else's photos never do. Insight works the same way. When a client takes their own snapshot, the learning sticks.
After 25 years of coaching, here is what I know. Presence is the product.
The technology will keep getting better. The human edge will keep getting more valuable.
PowerUpLeadership
