Executive Coach Dr. Towanna Burrous Is Changing the Future with AI Coaching

When Dr. Towanna Burrous wanted to be an executive coach, she found that traditional programs weren’t preparing leaders to coach people who are different from them. So, in 2015, she made her own coaching curriculum that combines cultural awareness with leadership development.

The result was CoachDiversity Institute, an organization that helped companies grow by fostering understanding and inclusion. Her timing was perfect. As DEI gained global attention in 2020, her company took off, earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 twice and expanding internationally.

Today, after a recent rebrand, Burrous is the president of the Institute for Coaching Innovation (ICI), and her work is once again changing the future of coaching. The coaching industry has become a multi-billion-dollar market, and according to the 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study, it generates an estimated $5.34 billion USD in annual revenue. Coaching has evolved from a niche service for executives into a core pillar of professional and leadership development across sectors. And as Burrous already predicted, the rise of AI is changing this field.

A 2025 NBER working paper, “How People Use ChatGPT” (2025), found that about 8% of ChatGPT users use the tool for advice, personal coaching, or self-improvement. For many coaches, this trend is both a potential opportunity and a problem. Some of them are worried that AI will make human intuition and empathy less needed, while others see it as a way to make “human” coaching better instead of replacing it.

Dr. Burrous is not worried. She says, “We’re not reacting to the future of coaching; we’re actively building it.” She says, “The question isn’t if AI will change or overtake coaching; it’s if we’ll use it to make us more human or less human.”

With her upcoming book, “Where AI Meets Empathy,” she will show coaches how they can stay authentically human in a world that is increasingly more automated. The book, which is set to come out in early 2026, is based on her belief that the future of coaching is not about choosing between human connection and technological efficiency, but about using technology to make people even better.

Business leaders are also showing increasing interest in AI-assisted coaching solutions. Even though traditional one-on-one coaching has proven effective, it is difficult to scale beyond the C-suite. These methods often fail to reach mid-level managers and emerging leaders who could benefit most from structured growth. As a result, there is a bottleneck that prevents many potential leaders from receiving the development they need.

At the same time, the executive coaching industry has a good reason for not wanting to overuse technology. Three main things are needed for effective executive coaching: understanding the person’s situation, making them feel safe psychologically, and building trust through real human connection. It seems that these parts can’t be scaled up with AI because they need the kind of intuition, time, and emotional intelligence that technology has always had trouble copying.

This is precisely where ICI stands apart. ICI uses AI, digital learning tools, and structured training programs to make coaching accessible to leaders at every level, so not just executives. Burrous’ approach blends technology with the same empathy and trust that shaped her earlier work, ensuring that every program keeps a strong focus on cultural awareness and connection. By combining on-demand learning, AI-assisted support, and human-centered facilitation, Burrous has created a model that allows organizations to help them scale leadership development across teams and geographies while keeping the human in the loop.

Burrous’ method gives coaching a way to deal with the rise of AI without losing what makes coaching work. Her method shows that technology can handle the easy parts of coaching, allowing coaches to focus on the more complex and nuanced aspects of helping people grow, which require empathy, intuition, and authentic connection.

“We’re preparing leaders and coaches to succeed in a world that’s increasingly complex and culturally diverse,” she says. “The future isn’t about replacing human coaches with AI. It’s about making coaches who are so skilled, so self-aware, and so supported by technology that they can help anyone become a better leader.”

The question isn’t whether technology will change coaching, but how thoughtfully the industry will accept that change.