Scenario 3 | Low Tech, Low Collaboration: Digital Divides
This scenario explores how coaching could evolve under conditions of minimal technological adoption and fractured global collaboration. By 2036, coaching has fragmented into disconnected silos, shaped by three intersecting drivers: Globalization and Cultural Intelligence, Economic Disruption and Evolving Work, and Regulation and Trust in Expertise. In this future, shared values have fractured, digital tools are no longer trusted and remain inaccessible, and global alignment has faltered. Coaching survives in localized pockets where human-to-human trust endures, but without unifying structures or standards.
Picture This:
Across the coaching landscape, coaches lean into analog methods in community centers, hesitant to adopt AI-enhanced platforms amid concerns about privacy and ethics, causing their associations to lose influence. Coaches in areas with limited digital infrastructure, innovate by creating support circles in local gatherings, blending traditional and low-tech approaches. Younger generations, navigating an uncertain future, find the profession increasingly irrelevant as its fractured nature fails to offer unified guidance. Ethical debates range between tech opponents and those desperate for connection, creating a profession more fractured than ever as coaches continue to find ways to serve clients in an uncertain world.
How This Future Unfolds Across Markets
In the face of global disruption, coaching quality and impact varies by region based on infrastructure, access, and cultural values.
Established Markets:
e.g., North America, Europe
- Tech Hesitancy: Many coaches and clients avoid AI-enhanced tools, concerned about privacy, ethics, and depersonalization.
- Fragmented Practice: Without shared tools, standards, or ethics, coaches operate in isolation.
- Ethical Tensions: The lack of consensus on AI use deepens divisions and weakens cohesion within the profession.
Emerging Markets:
e.g., Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America
- Access Inequities: Digital infrastructure limitations and affordability issues prevent widespread use of coaching platforms or digital delivery.
- Localized Innovation: Coaches use low-tech tools (SMS, WhatsApp) and community hubs to engage clients. According to the 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study, emerging regions also report lower average coaching fees and limited digital infrastructure, reinforcing the reality that affordability and access remain significant barriers to coaching scale.
- Limited Ecosystem Support: Without shared global infrastructure, coaching is ad hoc and unevenly developed.
The following drivers and signals explore a world where coaching functions within fractured systems and minimal digital access.
Volatile labor markets and inequality shift coaching from strategic investment to luxury service.
- Signal: The shift toward gig work through platforms like TaskRabbit and Upwork shifts focus from long-term development to short-term productivity with little investment in professional development, like coaching or career planning.
Polarization and declining institutional trust have weakened shared ethical frameworks, leading to fractured coaching ecosystems.
- Signal: Misinformation and disinformation dominate online discourse. Ideologically isolated communities on platforms like X intensify social polarization.
Fragmented standards and increased regulatory scrutiny limit global scalability and public trust in coaching.
- Signal: In 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission sanctioned an online therapy provider for misuse of personal data, sparking broader concern about digital coaching.
In this future scenario, coaching is shaped by cultural divides, distrust in technology, and economic volatility. Its presence and practice vary across the spectrum of markets:
Established Markets:
- Analog Coaching Revival: Coaches rely on face-to-face methods and analog tools, operating independently without shared standards or systems.
- Ethical Distrust: Mistrust of AI and unresolved debates about tech ethics further isolate coaches and erode professional unity.
- Disconnected Institutions: Coaching associations have lost influence, and corporate investment has diminished, pushing coaching to the margins of workforce development.
- Tailored Services: Coaching remains a boutique service for those seeking relational depth amidst cultural fragmentation.
Emerging Markets:
- Community-Based Coaching: Coaching emerges through informal networks, community hubs, and word of mouth, especially in areas with limited digital infrastructure.
- Low-Tech Innovation: Technology is limited to delivery channels where internet access is limited.
- Unregulated Practice: Without credentialing systems or policy support, coaching remains uneven and driven by local adaptation, not professional cohesion.
The Future Coaching Industry’s Role
ICF and other credentialing associations transition from global gatekeepers to regional enablers in this fractured future.
Established Markets:
- Provide ethical guidance, relational frameworks, and analog tools for low-tech environments.
Emerging Markets:
- Partner with NGOs, grassroots leaders, and community organizers to elevate coaching to co-develop community-based, low-tech models.
Global Facilitation:
- Promote decentralized ecosystems that prioritize adaptability, equity, and culturally responsive practices over global uniformity.
Future Client Personas: Coaching in 2036
Clients in 2036 seek human connection, cultural alignment, and clarity among chaotic systems.
Established Market Clients:
- Seek human-to-human coaching experiences rooted in trust and human connection.
- Avoid AI-enabled platforms out of concern for privacy, bias, or depersonalization.
- Question whether coaching can offer clarity in a culturally polarized world.
Emerging Market Clients:
- Turn to community-driven, low-tech coaching options where digital tools are inaccessible.
- Favor locally relevant coaching aligned with cultural values and lived experiences.
- Struggle with a lack of professional guidance due to limited coaching availability and inconsistent standards.
Future Coach Personas: Coaching in 2036
The coaching profession in 2036 responds to scarcity and instability with flexible, grounded approaches.
Established Market Coaches:
- Work independently, relying on personal networks and analog tools.
- Resist integrating tech out of ethical concern or lack of regulatory clarity.
- Adapt offers to emphasize relational and values-based support over scaled delivery.
Emerging Market Coaches:
- Innovate coaching models with hyper-portable, offline, or SMS-based engagement.
- Navigate fragmented professional development pathways due to a lack of unified standards.
- Depend on grassroots networks or NGOs, rather than global coaching institutions.
As coaching evolves, new challenges emerge:
- AI Ethics and Bias: How can coaches leverage AI-driven insights responsibly without reinforcing existing biases in a fragmented, unregulated environment?
- Fragmentation of Standards: As independent actors adopt AI without shared governance, what mechanisms — if any — can ensure consistent quality and ethical safeguards?
- Uneven Access and Capability: With limited infrastructure and collaboration, how does the profession prevent AI tools from reinforcing geographic, economic, and cultural divides in who receives quality coaching?
- Loss of Global Vision: In the absence of coordinated global efforts, how can the coaching profession retain a shared sense of purpose and future direction?
As you consider this future, ask yourself:
- What excites or concerns you about this vision?
- How might your role evolve in a world like this?
- What action could you take now to prepare?