144 | Four Coaching Niches About to Boom Thanks to AI

Joanna Lott: 00:01:26

Over the last few months I have been thinking about AI and how it's going to change the world.

If you've listened to Stephen Bartlett's podcast about a month ago with an AI expert, it was seriously frightening because for example, I thought, well, plumbers will be safe, but apparently not. There are robotic plumbers on the way. So there is so much noise about what is going to be wiped out, what will change and who should be panicking.

But when I look at the coaching industry, I see opportunities that you can seize right now to grow even faster rather than become obsolete. If you are a qualified coach or consultant listening to this, one of these niches could become a genuine opportunity for you.

I'm Jo Lott and I help coaches get clients with honesty, not hype. Today I want to talk about these four areas to give you that glimmer of hope in this AI driven world.

Despite the fear, there is also a moment of huge possibility if you choose to see it. So here are the predictions I make to where things may increase and become more valuable because of AI, not less opportunity.

One is organizational change and leadership consulting for SMEs. Every business is going through huge change right now, so AI will be reshaping roles, reshaping workflows, expectations, culture.

If you've ever used AI, you will know it can be very overwhelming because it leaves you in this loop where you feel like you're never done. And what if there's a better answer if you just talk to it a bit more? So it's a bit like social media in that way.

The that kind of sucks you in and keeps you there, whirling around. So in this overwhelmed state, leaders of organizations don't want some huge organization to talk to them or send them a very complex slide deck.

They want a real human being just like you, someone that they can trust, someone who can help their teams adapt to this hugely changing world.

This is where, if you are a coach with experience in hr, leadership, learning and development operations, organizational change can be incredibly valuable. Those small and medium organizations need support now more than ever, and I'm also really surprised at how few of them are really utilizing AI.

So you may even be able to teach them a thing or two as well.

They also may have the budgets to invest because maybe they have saved some money through AI, but the cost of managing that change well will be far higher than they pay you. So if you have ever led teams, deliver training, handled conflict or supported managers through that transformation, this niche is wide open for you.

Make sure that they know how you can support them through this AI transition. Okay. Opportunity two is personal brand coaching for executives and founders. In this world of AI, you are the only differentiator right now.

For thousands of years, we have been connected to human beings, their stories. We still want to buy from people that we like and trust. So a personal brand is no longer optional.

If you are not visible, you are forgettable and can easily be overtaken with AI. But if you are sharing your stories, being likable, being trustworthy, then people will still want to buy from you.

So executives and founders now need help with how to show up online with clarity. Maybe they want to get their next job. So they need to now start being visible on LinkedIn.

How to communicate their values and why they are different, how to lead more effectively, how to build trust through consistency, and how to share stories in a way that feels authentic and not cheesy. AI can assist with drafts, but it can't capture that human nuance.

I heard a stat yesterday that 15% of stuff out there now is not written by AI, which means 85% is and we can feel it. So if you can help someone use AI. Yes, because I think it really does save time.

But amend it to build in their own stories, their own message, and help them lead and build that personal brand with confidence, then you will do really well.

So if you naturally help people articulate who they are and how they want to show up, this niche will grow even further as the differentiator to AI generated faceless content. Opportunity 3 Productivity Focus and decision Coaching Everyone is overwhelmed.

Like I said earlier, AI keeps you in that loop and you can go round and round and you can't see straight by the time you are out of ChatGPT. So yes, it can seem like it speeds everything up, and it truly can.

But what it also means is that we have more decisions to make as to whether it's good enough or whether it's not good enough, whether there's a better prompt, whether we need to chat with it even further. We need to manage more of those inputs. We need to navigate more pressure because we're all expected to do more. AI tools won't fix that.

Calendars can't fix that. Another app won't fix that. But what will help you get clarity is is human support.

This niche is perfect for coaches who excel in helping people think clearly, understanding those behavior patterns, building sustainable systems, supporting emotional regulation, setting boundaries and managing overwhelm. This niche may become even more deeply needed in this really disconnected AI world we are living in.

Okay, Opportunity Four is AI integrated coaching products.

Lots of people are growing right now because they are building their own frameworks into AI systems which can support their clients or be a lead generator into their business. So if you have a tool, a framework, some sort of process, a structured system, then you can build that into AI.

For example, a clarity tool that helps leaders make decisions, which is not AI spinning them around in circles. It is your AI, your framework, which will not keep trying to help them again and again and again. You can build it so you get to the end.

In other words, okay, have you made a clear decision? Brilliant, job done. Now you take your next step, which AI very rarely does. It says, would you like me to do this, this, this, this, this?

And then you never seem to take the step with what it's given you to begin with. Maybe it's a team communication assessment, maybe it's helping people plan their week and doing some sort of strategic workflow to help them do that.

Maybe it's a tool that helps them work out their values. You can create the process and AI can power the delivery. I have done this throughout my program now.

So for example, I have a niche bot, an offer bot, a content planning bot, a website writing bot, a LinkedIn bot. So it may seem like simple AI ChatGPT, what's the difference?

But the difference is it's been built to just help you walk away from that conversation with for example, a clear I help statement or a clear offer if you're using the offer book. And it is also programmed with all of my materials, all of the proven niches that I've seen.

So it doesn't just gather all this data that's random and tell you, for example, that you can build a life coaching business, which sadly I think is a really, really hard niche to build.

But ChatGPT will tell you that of course there is a huge market for life coaching and as we know, we need to rebrand life coaching to be way more micro specific than that. So the benefit to building your own GPTs or tools is that you can program it to just help them with that thing.

They can trust it, they can start to get to know it, they can start to know that it will help them without overwhelming. So let's summarize the real secret ingredient here which runs through all of these. And the idea is your personal credibility will create demand.

Not the AI, not the tools, not the tactics. Your voice, your clarity, your leadership can utilize AI rather than turn against it.

Figure out what problems AI is causing and how can you help to fix them. I remember doing a course once that said all of your products, like all of your services, will create future problems.

Everything that we do will create another problem. For example, if you are a leadership coach and you do an amazing job, give this person an amazing service, they become an amazing leader.

They may then get a promotion to lead a huge team which creates another problem. So everything we do creates problems just like AI creates problems.

How can we keep looking to the problems that AI is creating and figure out how we can solve them?

I am doing exactly this right now and planning a new service, hopefully to launch by the end of this year which will solve a gap in the market that I have seen due to AI. So keep watching and I will share more as it reveals itself. It's something that I feel like I have reflected on for 12 months, maybe more.

So finally it's getting so much clearer as to how best I can support you. So keep watching and see me consider how AI is creating a gap in the market and how I hope to fill that gap for you.

So if you take one thing away from this episode, let it be this. Choose one opportunity and explore it this week. Consider the problems that are arising and take action.

Clarity comes from taking that first next step, which is messy without really knowing if it's a good idea. The only way you will ever know is to take that step and the next step will reveal itself. Thank you for listening to today's episode.

If this sparked ideas then I would love to hear from you. Do drop me a line on LinkedIn as Joanna with an A and lot with two T's.

world, then do sign up to the: 2026

entional year. Sign up to the: 2026

And like I say at the end of every episode, trust yourself, believe in yourself and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seeds. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

I have a mass of free resources on my website joannalottcoaching.com that's Joanna with an A and Lott with two Ts. Joanna locked coaching.com and I'll also put links in the show notes below.

Let me know if you found this episode useful, share it with a friend and leave me a review and I will personally thank you for that. Remember to trust yourself, believe in yourself and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seed. Get into the arena, dare greatly and try.