How Solopreneur Coaches Are Using AI to Transform Their Business

The landscape of solo business ownership is undergoing a quiet revolution, driven by the strategic adoption of artificial intelligence. For career and executive coaches, whose most critical work happens in one-on-one sessions, the challenge has always been turning transformative conversations into actionable results without the support of a larger team.

Three solopreneurs—Kim Surko, Katharine Campbell Hirst, and Liz Morrison—have found that AI is no longer just a helpful tool but an essential component of their business model. By leveraging AI for everything from administrative tasks to client engagement, they have expanded their capacity, increased efficiency, and delivered more tangible value to the clients they serve.

For solo coaches, the period after a client session often involves a difficult trade-off: sacrifice presence by taking notes during the conversation, spend hours transcribing recordings, or risk leaving follow-through entirely to the client. Kim Surko, founder of Surko Coaching, found this juggling act unsustainable.

"Trying to juggle it all on my own wasn't an option — it was just impossible to build a sustainable business,"

she explained, noting that the administrative workload often felt more burdensome than transformational. The solution, she discovered, was to lean into AI.

The most significant game-changer for all three coaches has been the use of AI note-takers to distill lengthy conversations into tangible outputs. After obtaining client consent, Katharine Campbell Hirst of KCH Coaching & Advisory records sessions and uploads transcripts into ChatGPT. This process allows her to rapidly transform nuanced insights into concrete materials like pitches, résumés, and website copy.

"What used to take weeks of agonizing refinement now takes minutes,"

she stated. Similarly, Liz Morrison of LM Strategic Storytelling uses custom projects in Claude to create "Story Banks" from session transcripts, pulling out three to six usable narratives per session for clients to leverage in interviews and networking.

The efficiency gains from AI have a direct impact on business scalability. By automating the transcription and summarization process, Kim Surko reported saving nearly an hour per client per day. This time savings has allowed her to nearly double her capacity for coaching clients, a critical advantage for a solopreneur looking to grow.

Beyond administrative efficiency, AI has proven invaluable for enhancing the client experience itself. Surko uses the project management tool Kanbanchi, supported by Gemini, to quickly update visual to-do list boards that outline a client's goals and achievements.

• Visual representation of progress
• Clear demonstration of coaching value
• Improved client renewal rates

"Having that visual representation of the progress we're making shows the value of coaching," Surko noted, adding that this transparency has improved her client renewal rate. Morrison employs a similar strategy with a custom ChatGPT tool called Story Explorer, which walks prospective clients through an exercise to uncover an immediately usable story, often serving as the catalyst for a deeper coaching engagement.

While AI excels at post-session tasks, these coaches have also found ways to integrate it directly into their live coaching to improve the quality of their interactions. The ability to be fully present during a session is a primary benefit, but the technology also serves as a powerful real-time resource.

Kim Surko utilized Gemini within Google Docs to create a searchable archive of her extensive toolkit of exercises and prompts, accumulated over a decades-long career. Previously buried in various folders, these resources are now instantly accessible during sessions.

"We make more progress in each session,"

Surko said of this improvement. "We're able to continue that momentum."

AI can also act as a reflective partner for the coaches themselves. Katharine Campbell Hirst uploaded transcripts from a client's full arc of sessions and asked the AI for feedback on where she performed well and where she could improve. She appreciates that AI can provide concrete, pattern-based feedback that is immediately actionable, effectively serving as a reflective practice partner that is available at all times.

The experiences of these three solopreneurs illustrate a broader trend: AI is not replacing the human connection at the heart of coaching, but rather amplifying it. By handling the administrative heavy lifting and providing new tools for engagement, AI allows coaches to focus on what they do best—guiding clients toward breakthrough insights.

As the technology continues to evolve, the potential for further integration grows. From personalized learning tools to advanced analytics on coaching effectiveness, the future for AI-powered solopreneurs looks bright. For coaches considering this path, the key takeaway is clear: embracing AI is not just about efficiency; it's about expanding your capacity to deliver transformational work.