Coaches and consultants: where AI helps, and where clients can tell
Your clients pay for judgment and presence. Use AI for everything around those, never instead of them.
Coaches, consultants and advisors sell something unusual. The product is partly information, but mostly attention, judgment and trust. That makes the question of AI more delicate for them than for a software company.
Where it helps
The admin around client work is fair game. Session notes can be cleaned up and turned into action lists. Intake forms can be summarized before a first call. Workshop outlines, follow-up emails and proposal drafts can all start from an AI draft and be finished by you.
Research is another strong use. Asking an assistant to lay out common frameworks for a problem, or to argue the other side of your recommendation, is a good way to stress-test your thinking before a client does.
Where clients can tell
Clients notice generic language quickly, especially in anything that is supposed to be about them. A reflection that could apply to anyone reads as if nobody was listening. The same goes for social posts that sound like everyone else's.
They also notice when a tool is standing in for presence. Fast replies are nice. A reply that clearly comes from someone who remembers last month's conversation is what keeps a client for years.
A simple rule
Let AI handle the first draft of anything generic and the last mile of nothing personal. If a sentence is meant to show a client that you understand them, write it yourself.