Instead of an AI health coach, you can just have friends

Someone has to say it. Someone needs to speak up in defense of being a center. I’m a middle runner. Most of us are like this because that’s the definition of average. I exercise every day, but I have a full-time job, two children, a dog and a spouse. I volunteer and have dinner with my parents. I’m getting aged. I don’t plan on blowing anyone away with a crazy 100-mile run anytime soon.

So what should you do if you don’t want to sink into a bag of dust and you don’t have the time or motivation to work with a personal trainer? One option is to do what Atlantic CEO and incredibly brisk runner Nicholas Thompson does and exploit a custom GPT. You can also exploit Google’s recent AI health coach in the Fitbit app, which is part of the package Premium Fitbit for $10 per month Work.

Following Google’s instructions, I used Coach (which is in public preview— sort of a beta version) for three weeks. I am a trainer for Girls on the run at my daughter’s school, where she made friends running with a child competing in the Junior Olympics. I set myself the goal of running two children in a 5K race in November, so at a 12:30 mile pace. I actually felt pretty good about it until a lot of people told me that I should stop talking to the computer and that I needed to talk to people in real life.

First things first

You can access the Fitbit public preview if you meet a few requirements – you must be an busy Fitbit Premium subscriber, have a phone running Android 11 or later, be located in the US, and exploit English in both the Fitbit app and on your phone. (You can check full list of requirements here.)

You can also switch between the public preview and the regular version of the app, which may be advisable as the Coach version of the app currently lacks some vital features. For example, menstrual health and blood glucose data, as well as Cardio Fitness scores and advanced running stats, are unavailable for Pixel Watch 3 and 4 users.

I used this service on a Pixel Watch 4 on a Pixel 9. (Fitbit wants to make this service available to iOS users soon). I had the same experience with the Running Trainer, which Fitbit launched last year, but I was more hopeful about the Health Trainer because it promises to be both more comprehensive and more adaptable.

Many runners who are much smarter and more experienced than me (see middle comment above) have noted that running requires the ability to correctly answer many binary yes/no questions. Can I do a long run on Saturday if I’m busy on Sunday? Should I run away with the sniffles or wait until I get better? A little more guidance is always helpful. I filled out a 10-minute questionnaire about my goals and available equipment (Fitbit hopes to eventually be able to incorporate multimodal activities, such as video recording exercise equipment and using AI to make suggestions) and waited for the results.

Bumps in the road

via Adrienne So

via Adrienne So

My first impressions were not promising. The coach seemed to think I was in a draft conference, even though I wasn’t, and I said so. This didn’t bother me though, as it was basic to adapt treadmill runs and hotel room workouts to outdoor runs and plain weightlifting sessions in front of the TV.

You can track live stats via the Fitbit app or simply exploit the watch to track your workout and later sync your completed workout to the program. I really like this feature. Many people enjoy training with live tracking; I find it stressful and not very exact, especially since I don’t run on a treadmill and getting exact intervals/distance when running around my neighborhood is challenging for me.