AI and the Coaching Business: What 15 Years in the Industry Actually Reveals with Rebecca Tracey
Everyone is talking about AI and what it means for coaches. Whether it's going to take over, whether coaching is safe, whether new coaches can use it to get a head start. But most of those conversations are happening without the perspective of someone who has actually watched thousands of coaches build their businesses over many years and is seeing the impact in real time.
Rebecca Tracey is that person. As the founder of The Uncaged Life and the coach who has helped over 2,000 coaches start their businesses since 2011, she has a view of this moment that very few people have. In this episode of She Coaches Coaches, I sit down with Rebecca for a real and honest conversation about what's actually happening in the coaching industry right now.
The AI Content Problem No One Is Talking About
The most common way coaches are using AI right now is for content. Writing their website copy. Writing their sales pages. Writing their social media posts. And Rebecca is direct about what she's seeing.
"A lot of the content is garbage," she says. "A lot of the stuff that I'm reading on people's websites just reads like AI."
The problem isn't that coaches are using a tool to save time. The problem is what AI doesn't know how to include. The personal stories. The specific details. The voice that comes from years of living a particular experience. The you.
And here's what makes it particularly hard for new coaches. They've never written this kind of content before. They don't have a baseline to compare the AI output to. They don't know what's missing. So they publish it. And then they wonder why it isn't landing with the people they most want to reach.
"Just throwing in your brand voice is still not going to do it," Rebecca says. "You need to be able to see what AI is not including and add that back in."
For coaches who have been relying on AI to write their marketing, this is the reframe worth sitting with. AI can give you a structure and a starting point. It can't give you your specificity, your stories, or your genuine voice. Those have to come from you.
Is Coaching Safe From AI? Rebecca's Honest Answer
I ask the question directly. Is coaching safe from AI? And Rebecca's answer is honest and nuanced.
"I've only started to just worry a little bit that maybe it's not safe," she says. "I still don't know."
Her concern isn't about established coaches with years of skills, relationships, and a track record. It's about new coaches who are using AI to shortcut the foundational work of building a business before they've actually developed those skills.
"They're almost shortcutting that by using AI," she says. "And so they're not developing the skills as well."
The skills she's talking about aren't technical. They're relational. The ability to talk about your work in a way that's clear, compelling, and specific enough that someone immediately thinks, I need this. The ability to have a real conversation with a potential client and invite them into a coaching relationship without it feeling like a sales pitch. The ability to articulate what makes your approach different from everything else available, including AI.
These skills can't be generated. They have to be practiced, refined, and earned through real experience with real people. [link to how to sign coaching clients playlist]
Why Your Niche Needs to Be More Specific Than Ever
One of the most practically useful insights in this conversation is Rebecca's take on niches. The bar for specificity has shifted.
"Niches need to be a lot more specific now than they used to be," she says. "Because you can just go to AI and ask it all the questions and it does give you decent answers."
If what you're offering is something a potential client could get from a well-prompted AI search, you're competing with a free tool that's available 24 hours a day. The coaches who are thriving right now are the ones solving something specific enough, personal enough, and human enough that no AI can replicate the experience of working with them.
For coaches who have been holding onto a broad or general niche because choosing feels risky, this is a direct challenge. The risk now is staying general. Specificity is what creates the gap between you and every other coach, including every AI-generated answer, in your space.
The Skill That Matters More Than Any Tool
Rebecca and I agree on something that runs through the whole conversation. The coaching industry has always required coaches to be good at articulating what they do, inviting people into a conversation, and building enough trust that someone decides to invest in working with them.
That has always been true. And it's more true now.
"The sales cycle is longer now," Rebecca says. "People are more discerning about where they're spending their money. Getting really good at those skills is even more important than it always was."
What AI can't do is show up in a real conversation with a real person and make them feel genuinely understood. It can't replace the moment where a potential client thinks, she gets it. She sees exactly what I'm dealing with. It can't build the trust that comes from consistent, specific, human presence over time.
For coaches who have been spending most of their business-building time behind the screen, this is the invitation to shift. The conversations, the real ones with real humans, are still where clients come from.
How Rebecca Built a Custom GPT From Years of Coaching Calls
In her own business, Rebecca has found one use of AI that she's genuinely excited about. She created a custom GPT built from hundreds of recorded group coaching calls from her program, years worth of real answers to real questions from real coaches.
The idea was to make all of that wisdom searchable and accessible to students between live coaching calls. Someone stuck on their niche or their messaging can go in, ask a question, and get an answer that reflects the actual approach Rebecca and her team have refined over years of working with coaches.
She tested it thoroughly before launching. Had students beta test it. Read the answers herself. And across the board the results were strong.
"I read the answers and I was like, damn, this is good," she says.
She was also clear about the boundary. One student said the answers were so good she didn't need to submit anything for the coaching call. Rebecca's response was immediate. Still come to the calls. AI can get you to a certain point. Then the human conversation is where you go deeper.
That distinction, AI as a bridge to the human work rather than a replacement for it, is the through line of everything Rebecca shared in this conversation.
Key Takeaways
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AI-generated content is missing the personal stories, specific details, and genuine voice that make coaching content actually convert. New coaches often don't know what's missing because they have no baseline.
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Coaching isn't automatically safe from AI, especially for new coaches who are shortcutting the skill-building process with tools before they've developed foundational business abilities.
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Niches need to be more specific now than ever before. If AI can answer the question your potential client is asking, your niche isn't specific enough.
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The skill of articulating what you do, inviting people into conversations, and building trust over a longer sales cycle matters more now than it ever has.
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AI works best as a bridge to the human work, not a replacement for it. The conversations, the real ones, are still where clients come from.
Ready to Build a Coaching Business That's Actually Yours?
Grab Rebecca's free guide Say This Not That, 50 coaching niches with before and after descriptions that show you exactly how to make your niche description clear, compelling, and marketable:
https://theuncagedlife.com/saythisnotthat
Grab the free course, Stop Guessing and Start Signing Clients, and get clear on your next step:
https://candymotzek.lpages.co/vfo/
Download the free Coaching Business Insights Report 2026 for real data on what's working for coaches right now:
https://candymotzek.lpages.co/business-growth-survey/
Watch the How to Start a Coaching Business playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Ja1CypZHinAnJBRM6ENbRtYs--2hSwY
Ready to work with Candy? Book a free 30 minute call:
https://stepintosuccessnow.com/
About Rebecca Tracey:
Rebecca Tracey is the founder of The Uncaged Life where she works with coaches, healers, and similar service-based businesses to help them learn how to build strong foundations so they can get clients faster. She's helped over 2,000 coaches start businesses and runs a highly engaged online community of over 17,000 entrepreneurs. She started her business in 2011 while living in a Chevy '81 campervan that said Gone Fishin on the back. She now lives in her dream town of Squamish, BC surrounded by mountains, with her two silly dogs Walnut and Judy and her newest adventure buddy, her one-year-old Charlie.
Instagram:
@theuncagedlife
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