Fitbit’s New AI Coach is Here: Why Catching Whoop Changes Everything.
Google’s new Fitbit app and AI-powered Coach are rolling out now, signalling a fundamental shift in how health and fitness tech works in mainstream company apps. This is more than an update—it represents the turning point where LLM-based AI becomes a core, non-negotiable feature for any serious health and fitness application.
Most of the stories you will read about the fitbit app are feature-focused
Industry commentators have missed the fundamental behavioural changes that have already started between consumers and their health and fitness apps. We are moving from repetitive data interactions to dynamic conversations driven by personal insights.
The core premise, that Google seems to have grasped, is that we have moved from the ‘Data Capture’ era into the ‘Health and fitness Knowledge’ era. For over two decades, fitness tech has presented us with ever more pages of information, lines of data, and new unfathomable metrics. The tech companies now have the tools to cut through information overload and start to give us truly actionable insights and a deep understanding of our bodies and capabilities.
Whoop grasped that over two years ago with Whoop Coach. Google’s Fitbit Coach appears to take a similar approach today. The competition will keep producing more, ever-prettier charts tomorrow that only a minority of consumers have the time and ability to understand and digest.
This marks a fundamental shift.
The Core Similarity: AI-Powered Conversational Coaching
Google’s Gemini AI powers Fitbit’s new Coach, and Whoop Coach is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4. The precise AI tool is largely irrelevant; what is relevant is the interaction mechanism and ‘intelligence’ of the AI.
Fitbit Coach relies on conversational access. The precise mechanism of the interaction doesn’t matter – it can be voice or keyboard. What matters is that the AI understands the question, looks at your real-time and historical data, and responds with conversational recommendations, such as “How to improve your VO2max.” More complex associations can also be queried, such as when you ask Fitbit Coach, “How has my recent stress management score correlated with my average deep sleep duration and my training readiness for my long runs over the last two weeks?”
This data is not hallucinated. It’s your actual data with relatively straightforward math applied by the AI. In Whoop’s case, the knowledge and insights are bound by a library of scientific papers, and I would assume something similar from Google.
Over the last few years, you may have seen just about every other wellness and sports data company introducing their AI solution, which often amounts to “Yay, you ran 5% faster than normal today.” These systems are typically based on traditional Machine Learning (ML) or simple algorithms. This approach does not leverage the conversational and contextual intelligence of a true LLM, and it is often a finite, pre-defined decision tree rather than a dynamic coach.
The Shift from Daily Metrics to Holistic Planning
The new Fitbit and Whoop coaches both structure data around long-term load (cumulative effort), readiness and dynamic adaptation, a far cry from simple tracking of calories and logging of steps.
Fitbit is subtly repositioning its emphasis towards weekly trends and aggregate shifts rather than day-to-day insights, e.g. Cardio Load is changed to a Weekly Value, and its Coach dynamically adjusts your plan based on changes to training load, readiness, and overnight recovery data.
Several of the latest changes (e.g. adaptive training) are not new, but how they are layered with an LLM is the approach that most companies will eventually need to take.
The New Look and Missing Pieces
The Fitbit app features a sleek makeover that organises a unified experience over four main tabs: Today, Fitness, Sleep, and Health. The organisation makes sense and differs from the layout adopted by Whoop – there’s nothing especially new there. However, each component has Gemini baked in – for example, the training plans are adapted weekly, Sleep incorporates conversational answers to questions like “Why did I wake up tired?” or summarises sleep patterns and their impact on fitness metrics.
Fitbit’s app is far from finalised, and the company notes several omissions currently ‘in the works’, including Stress Management Score, Cardio Fitness Score, Friends, groups, leaderboards, and manual editing of sleep sessions.
Key challenges for Google Fitbit
I like where the company is heading. However, many of its existing customers will be acutely concerned about privacy and data security. In contrast, others will love their current experience and not want to change (for now).
Google has offered reassurances on the former and the ability to switch back to the old app – at least for now. They explicitly stated the AI Coach data will not be used for Google Ads—a critical reassurance for their user base.
Conclusion and Outlook
We have all heard that AI will change the world we experience, and we all believe or fear it to varying degrees.
Fitness and wellness companies appear to have reacted to the seismic change currently happening to their business through a spectrum of responses, ranging from:
- Basic ML/Algorithms: Pretending to their customers that algorithms and Machine Learning (ML) are AI (e.g., pre-canned responses).
- Token Inclusion: Token inclusion of AI (e.g., a single chat box feature) to justify a marketing campaign.
- Core LLM Integration: Seamlessly baking in a large language model (LLM) as the core app experience (e.g., Whoop, Fitbit).
The key here is that AI is not another menu option. It is a foundational conversational model that drives the entire experience. Whoop seemed to ‘get it’ two years ago; Google Fitbit appears to have ‘got it’ too.
Whether any major sports and fitness companies have truly got it yet remains to be seen. I’ve seen nothing from Coros, Garmin, Strava, Suunto, Polar and many others to convince me they understand the needed change to their apps or that they have the resources to deliver it. What have they done in the last two years? Certainly, Strava and Garmin have already released AI features, but you get the idea that they will cover discrete, pre-defined aspects of health/fitness and live behind a paywall, rather than offering true conversational and holistic adaptation.
Google seems to be following a cunning plan. The latest Pixel watches and Wear OS place the company in a good place after years of neglect following the Fitbit acquisition (2019). Baking in AI to the app experience and renewing Fitbit hardware in 2026 might put Google-Fitbit in a surprisingly better place a year from now.
The Fitbit brand will be an interesting one to watch.
Photo: Jeremy Lapak, Unsplash
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