Like with each different nook of our lives, AI has flooded widespread health apps and wearables. From Strava’s Athlete “Intelligence,” to Garmin’s underwhelming Join+ subscription, to Whoop’s restoration suggestions, these AI-powered options declare to remodel uncooked information into actionable knowledge. The fact? Most of those AI summaries are costly digital fortune cookies that inform you what you already know, whereas typically lacking what really issues.
This issues not simply because I am a hater, however as a result of customers are dropping cash right here. Many of those AI options are locked behind premium subscriptions, making a type of synthetic shortage round what’s primary information interpretation. This is why most AI health summaries are rubbish, and which of them you may perhaps belief.
Lack of context
AI health techniques function in a knowledge vacuum. They’ll inform you your coronary heart fee variability dropped, however they cannot account for the work presentation that stored you up, the argument along with your associate, or the glass of wine you had with dinner. Human efficiency is influenced by numerous variables that these techniques merely can not entry or interpret.
I am not saying I would like these instruments to have entry to my calendar and way of life, however a extra helpful system would observe “your efficiency declined probably as a result of three consecutive days of poor sleep coinciding with your corporation journey.”
Generic recommendation disguised as personalization
That is the one which makes my eyebrows shoot as much as the sky. These techniques excel at repackaging your current information with generic well being recommendation, creating the phantasm of personalised teaching whereas delivering one-size-fits-all platitudes. Strava’s AI is infamous for restating the info from the run description. Take this instance from one among my runs earlier this week, the place Strava’s AI clearly simply pulls from what I already wrote about my expertise and runs it by a thesaurus. Plus, “diverse elevation modifications” sounds sensible, however what that describes is…properly, operating on most roads.
This isn’t true personalization.
Credit score: Meredith Dietz
And this does not even get into how wildly inaccurate that calorie depend is.
True personalization would require understanding your particular objectives, coaching historical past, damage patterns, and way of life constraints—info these techniques hardly ever have entry to. As an alternative, most AI health summaries draw from the identical pool of standard health knowledge. My colleague Beth Skwarecki shares some enjoyable examples of Garmin’s AI being wildly inaccurate in her piece right here, and in addition despatched me some extra beneath. Take a look at the inane platitudes and straight-up inaccuracies.
“Sustain the great work!”
Credit score: Beth Skwarecki
Helpful AI could be predictive insights, reasonably than reactive summaries. I would be fascinated by seeing once I’m heading towards overtraining, determine optimum coaching home windows based mostly on restoration patterns, or counsel particular changes to forestall damage.
Overconfidence in incomplete information
Health trackers are notoriously inaccurate for a lot of metrics, significantly energy burned, sleep levels, and stress ranges. AI summaries compound this drawback by presenting conclusions that are not essentially true. This week I went on an especially difficult run in 85% humidity, pushing by foot ache. Think about my frustration when this was Strava’s interpretation of my expertise:
What do you assume to date?
This run was something however relaxed.
Credit score: Meredith Dietz
Easy methods to profit from AI health summaries
Strava is my go-to health app, and Garmin is my go-to watch. However in terms of Strava’s “Athlete Intelligence” and Garmin Join+, consumer reactions have been combined at greatest. I’ve personally acquired summaries like “Your coronary heart fee was elevated throughout your run” or “You coated extra distance than your earlier exercise.” These insights are instantly seen within the uncooked information and do not require AI processing to grasp. And once more, the core challenge right here is price.
As a consumer in r/Garmin places it, these “insights” are simply “probably the most primary abstract of your exercises potential…I used to be actually hoping that it might be an precise chatbot that you could possibly talk about coaching with and so on to create plans.” On that entrance, your greatest bets in the marketplace proper now are Whoop and Oura. Their AI-driven insights have been positively acquired, even when their worth proposition is more and more questionable. In comparison with the generic summaries on different apps, these insights function as chatbots. This fashion, if you ask particular questions (already utilizing your mind greater than merely studying a abstract), you may obtain articles that go into extra (human-written) element.
One other app that does a good job at including much-needed context is Runna. Its insights really pull information from climate and your coaching calendar. This is one other screenshot from Beth, exhibiting how Runna does greater than merely restate the info you personally entered.
Fairly helpful stuff!
Credit score: Beth Skwarecki
Plus, in Runna, you do not get it till you fee your exercise, and you may skip the score with out affecting the rest about how the app works. Which brings me to at least one the primary takeaways right here: AI does not need to be an all or nothing dedication. In case you’re already paying for a subscription that features AI health summaries, listed below are a few of your choices.
Ignore the summaries fully. For many customers, the neatest method is to disable AI summaries totally and give attention to uncooked information. Your coaching load, sleep period, and coronary heart fee tendencies present completely actionable info.
Cherry-pick helpful information factors. In case you select to have interaction with AI summaries, deal with them as beginning factors to your personal evaluation, reasonably than definitive steerage. Search for patterns and tendencies, whereas ignoring particular suggestions.
Disable the summaries altogether. In Garmin Join+ and Strava, you may go to your settings and easily decide out of AI summaries. In Oura and Whoop, you do not get the AI until you begin a dialog with the bot.
Put money into human experience as a substitute. Hey, perhaps the subscription price of a number of AI health platforms may fund periodic consultations with certified sports activities scientists, nutritionists, or coaches. These individuals can present genuinely personalised steerage based mostly in your particular state of affairs and objectives.
The underside line
In case you ask me, your health tracker already offers the info that you must make knowledgeable selections about your coaching and restoration. Studying to interpret that information your self will serve you higher than ready for AI to do it for you—and it will not price you a further month-to-month subscription price. The know-how exists to create genuinely helpful health AI, however in the interim, my health summaries are simply costly digital noise.
