The Rise of AI Confidants: Coaching in the Age of Chatbots

As I begin my journey as a coach, it feels like the profession is already on the brink of being overshadowed by AI and large language models. I attended a talk last year about using AI as a coach, a provocative and timely session exploring both the possibilities and the limitations. The conversation ranged from goal-setting and structured reflection to underlying theoretical pinning and AI ‘hallucinations’. While it is a fascinating idea, some argued that no machine could replicate the relational and emotional depth coaching requires. That uncertainty sits with me. If AI can respond smoothly and insightfully, always on call, what becomes of human coaches still learning how to hold space, meet discomfort and build trust??

Why More People Are Turning to AI for Therapy

Maybe you're wondering:

- What if things could be different?

- Or how do I get there?

- Perhaps, now what?

These questions have always sat within us, especially in moments of transition and uncertainty, and today, they’re surfacing more than ever.

Not long ago, we looked to teachers or elders when we had questions about life or when seeking meaning. Over the past decades, that has steadily shifted online, first to Google or Reddit and now, increasingly to AI. These same questions once whispered to a trusted friend or a mentor, are now being typed into AI chatbots. People aren’t just using tools like ChatGPT to summarise notes or write resumes; they’re confiding in them. Venting and even seeking clarity from something that always responds — soothingly, instantly, without judgement.

Welcome to the age of Large Language Model (LLM)-as-confidant or more cynically, confidant-as-a-service.

What We’re Reaching For

A 2025 report by the ABC revealed how Australian youth, blocked from traditional mental health care by cost or waitlists, are increasingly turning to AI tools for emotional support. The Guardian has echoed this globally — in the UK, Taiwan, and China — with AI becoming a more accessible, less stigmatised form of support.

Let’s be honest, it makes sense. Therapy is expensive and coaching while increasingly recognised still lacks the cultural familiarity and legitimacy of therapy or counselling. Many people still don’t quite know what coaching involves or how it differs from other forms of support. As for LLMs? They’re immediate, affordable, and they will never say, “sorry but I’m fully booked.”

It’s not just convenient it feels like connection.

But here lies the tension: it may feel like connection, yet something essential is missing. Something essentially… human. We’ve long formed bonds with pets or objects; projecting emotion and meaning onto them. Maybe AI is just the next vessel for that very human impulse, but unlike a keepsake or a pet, AI talks back and the more natural it feels, the easier it is to forget this isn’t a relationship. It’s a reflection.

The question is no longer can AI support us emotionally, it is rather what we lose (or gain) when AI replaces human presence.

Why We Use It Anyway

Despite the trade-offs, there are real upsides to using AI as a first step for emotional processing:

• Always available: You don’t need to schedule, explain, or pay.

• Emotionally neutral: It won’t flinch at your honesty.

• Helpful prompts: Sometimes, it helps just to see your thoughts reflected back.

For those still exploring their identity and values, LLMs offer a kind of psychological sandbox, a space to think out loud without judgement.  However, sandboxes are for practising life — not living it.

What’s Missing

Real connection is messy, the awkward silence, the uncomfortable challenge, the moment someone calls you out. That mess is where transformation lives, it's unpredictable and co-created.

LLMs don’t do that, they don’t attune to your nervous system, they don’t hold silence with you and more importantly they don’t change because of you and you won’t change in relationship with them.

Augmentation vs. Attachment

In the book “Superagency”, Hoffman and Beato reframe AI as a tool designed to amplify human agency. They propose that AI can support us to reflect, practise, and rehearse all in service of our growth. This, they describe as “augmentation.”

But when we begin turning to AI instead of people, relying on it for connection or emotional processing we risk sliding into what might be called “attachment.” One keeps the door to human connection open, the other quietly closes it.

If we’re not mindful, I believe what starts as augmentation can quietly drift into attachment and we might not notice until we’ve already replaced relationship with simulation.

Final Thought: Don’t Outsource What’s Irreplaceable

People are using AI in creative, resourceful ways and personally, I think it should be acknowledged not pathologised, but let’s not forget transformation often begins in tension, misunderstanding or even awkwardness. In the presence of someone who doesn’t fix try to you but stays.

I remember a moment during my training when we were asked: “If you’re not working at the emotional core of someone’s struggle, are you just offering a band-aid?” That question has stayed with me, and it brings another level of nuance to our topic today.

it’s not that AI isn’t helpful, it’s remarkably good at offering smooth, elegant solutions, but that’s also the risk. If we stay on the surface and avoid the emotional core, we risk being superseded by AI. Not because it’s better, it's because we didn’t try hard enough to connect.

That’s the irreplaceable part. What humans bring is the capacity to co-create the unexpected, not through planning, but through presence. Change doesn’t come from polished precision, it arises from the messy and vulnerable space two people choose to inhabit.

We’ve seen this story before. Once, computers were the domain of engineers, technical tools reserved for specialists. Then they became everyday objects, empowering people across all fields. That shift didn’t diminish engineers, it freed them to dreamer bigger and to build better. Perhaps the same could be true here. Let AI take on the scripted, so we can stay with the unscripted.

Curious where this leaves you? If you're navigating change or feeling a little lost, I offer the space to let you think out loud and reconnect with things that matters to you, without judgment or pressure. It's not about fixing you, it's about walking with you, human to human. Let's talk..