How is AI Revolutionizing the Fitness Industry Nowadays?

Do you sometimes wonder if you could offer something more to your fitness app users? You provide them with great training plans, but what if your product was number one on the market? Imagine taking your app to the next level with cutting-edge technology that not only personalizes workouts but also boosts user engagement like never before.

AI-powered fitness apps are revolutionizing the fitness industry by offering personalized workout regimens and enhancing user engagement. They leverage generative AI, machine learning, and vast amounts of user data to create tailored fitness plans that adapt to each individual’s needs and progress. The result? Higher satisfaction, increased retention, and a competitive edge in the crowded fitness app market. Read our article and learn how incorporating AI can improve UX, increase user engagement, and help your business grow. Discover the transformative power of AI and see how it can elevate your fitness app to become the top choice for users everywhere.

The rise of fitness apps

According to Forbes, 72% of respondents found it easier to work out regularly even though they couldn’t visit a gym during the pandemic and lockdown. In the face of the crisis, many fitness apps have emerged, providing users with innovative ways to stay active.

The result? Some sports enthusiasts decided to exercise with an app, rather than go back to a gym. And even those who have willingly gone back to their favorite studios have remained users of various fitness apps — choosing a mix of online and offline experiences over a single option.

As a result, the pool of potential clients of fitness apps remains vast, even though brick-and-mortar studios are up and running again. The thing is, the fitness app market itself is huge as well, so it is crucial to make your offer stand out and ensure your app will be THE choice for users.

In this reality, shaping a truly unique value proposition plays an even more significant role than ever — whether you decide to focus on an online-only offer or provide hybrid services combining a traditional gym membership and the in-app experience. The good news is using AI brings many benefits that can help you achieve that goal.

How is AI used in the fitness industry?

With constantly developing AI advancements, the possibilities for building AI-powered fitness apps keep growing, but the market is already full of interesting examples of fitness AI.

Modern trends in the fitness industry include, for example, using wearable, wellness- and fitness-tracking devices, thanks to which you get access to vast amounts of user data. The nice idea is to use this data to combine fitness functionalities with diet and sleep hygiene recommendations and create training sessions of different types and lengths.

Following a holistic approach is very trendy nowadays. Users, becoming increasingly aware of its importance, actively search for apps that can help them switch to a more healthy lifestyle, build better eating and workout routines, improve their sleep, etc.

AI in fitness seems to be an answer to these needs, allowing app creators to design solutions providing high-level guidance (including assigning an actual fitness coach/personal trainer to the user) and personalization.

With the possibilities offered by today’s AI, it’s no exaggeration to say that the sky’s the limit here. The form and scope of your fitness AI solutions depend, in fact, only on your creativity, business goals, and the needs of your target audience.

Need an inspiration? We’ve got you. Take a look at how other fitness businesses leverage artificial intelligence.

Personalized workout plan

FitnessAI uses this technology to come up with a personalized workout plan for its users. This is possible thanks to machine learning, advanced analytics, and an enormous collection of exercises and user data. Advantages? No more repeatable, boring training that is not adjusted to the client’s actual needs. This AI-powered fitness app provides users with training programs that help them achieve their fitness goals.

Holistic approach

Freeletics is another great example of an AI fitness app that offers a more overall approach. Apart from creating personalized exercises, it gives users nutrition advice based on their data, scientific research, and user’s individual preferences. It helps clients stay healthy and makes their workouts even more effective. This holistic approach supports users throughout their entire fitness journey, from exercise to nutrition.

Real-time data usage

With advanced AI-based analytics and machine learning algorithms, your company can come up with personalized training programs and lifestyle recommendations even more efficiently than a human personal trainer. That’s the approach taken by Aaptiv Coach, which offers an app leveraging data collected through wearable devices.

How to determine the features of your fitness AI app?

When determining the features of your fitness AI app, start by understanding your target audience and their specific needs. Conduct market research to identify the most sought-after functionalities in fitness apps. Prioritize features like personalized workout plans, real-time progress tracking, and integration with wearable devices.

Additionally, consider incorporating nutrition advice and mental wellness support to provide a holistic fitness experience. Collaborate with fitness experts and data scientists to ensure your app is both effective and user-friendly. By focusing on these key areas, you can create a comprehensive fitness AI app that stands out in the market.

Hyper personalization in AI-powered fitness applications

When developing your fitness AI app, it’s essential to focus on integrating advanced technologies that provide personalized experiences for users. Fitness AI can help create customized fitness regimens tailored to individual fitness levels, ensuring each user gets the most effective workout plan.

By analyzing vast amounts of training data, fitness AI can adjust recommendations based on real-time feedback and progress, enhancing each user’s experience. Whether a user is just starting out or has a high fitness level, the AI can adapt to their specific needs.

Including features that cater to various fitness levels will not only engage users but also help them reach their fitness goals more efficiently. This way, your app can support users at every stage of their fitness journey, making it a vital tool for their workouts.

How to run an AI-driven fitness business?

The answer is simple — follow the client-centric approach. AI is all about data. With the right algorithms and a huge amount of information, you can provide users with truly personalized experiences and help them achieve their fitness goals. AI can help you develop a workout program that is tailored to each user’s needs and goals.

AI in fitness companies increases their overall business flexibility, so it is a great investment not only if you would like to run an online business but also if you plan on running a traditional fitness studio. You can develop an AI-based fitness app to enhance your business model, reduce costs and increase revenue. An application can be another pillar of your business that allows you to attract new clients — those who prefer to exercise at home or don’t have time for regular training.

Why is it worth building a fitness AI application? 

Are you considering investing in an AI workout app? That’s a great decision! By leveraging AI in the fitness application of your design, you will become more competitive, regardless of whether you run a hybrid fitness business or operate fully online. Developing an AI exercise app allows you to:

Personalize user experience

It will help you improve client retention and attract new, potential clients. By combining the power of AI with gathering data from wearable devices in real-time, you can offer hyper-personalization and display highly curated suggestions to your users.

Increase user satisfaction

More accurate training and diet recommendations help users achieve their fitness goals faster. AI in fitness apps makes workouts more engaging and fun, thanks to providing clients with real-time analytics and professional exercise suggestions. Fitness AI offers a range of features, but it’s important to be aware of its limitations, such as the lack of personalized workout plans.

Increase your gym’s revenue

As you already know, AI-powered features can significantly increase your app’s attractiveness. And that’s exactly what translates into increasing your gym’s revenue!

Innovative functionalities that come with leveraging the possibilities of AI in your fitness app will very likely attract more users, even those who were previously using a different app. That’s because people want a wide variety of functionalities, especially those smart ones that can uplevel their training and give them the feel of being supported by a personal trainer.

Attract people who can’t or don’t want to attend a brick-and-mortar gym

As an addition to the traditional fitness business, AI fitness apps give gyms an opportunity to reach new groups of clients. There are many people who don’t have time to visit a gym on a daily basis but who are capable of exercising at home. Others may simply not feel comfortable in a gym but want to be active and healthy.

With AI in a fitness app, you can help them with that. Training sessions, adjusted to users’ particular needs based on their data, increase their engagement and satisfaction.

Support marketing activities

To make use of data, AI-based fitness applications need to collect it in the first place. Gathered information tells you a lot about your current and non-active users. With this data, you can leverage segmentation and targeting.

Artificial intelligence in the workout industry — challenges

Although AI in the fitness industry is very desirable by most companies, there are some challenges you have to take into consideration before you engage in this project:

Ensuring data quality

There is no AI without data. This means your business needs access to reliable sources of information, and you must establish processes for data cleaning to ensure high data quality. Ensuring data quality is crucial for creating an effective workout plan using AI.

Limited talent pool

It’s hard to find data scientists with relevant domain expertise (but not impossible, of course!). The demand for skilled AI professionals often exceeds supply, making recruitment challenging. Despite this, securing the right talent is essential for developing a successful AI-powered fitness app.

A good solution may be partnering with a reliable software agency that can compose a team according to your project’s requirements and adjust it over time as the needs change. Additionally, such a partner can advise on what skill set is actually necessary for your project, helping you avoid redundant costs.

AI is an R&D process

In other words, AI projects are much like experiments. As such, they can fail for many different reasons: because of the quality of data, lack of data strategy, or underestimated human factor. In order to get on board with AI adoption, you need to be ready to test ideas and let some of them fail. The key is to validate it as soon as possible.

Proper business maturity

It’s about the business model’s flexibility and level of digitalization. As it was mentioned already, companies that leverage AI need to have access to a lot of data if they are to succeed.

Time-consuming development process

Creating any kind of fitness app takes time (sometimes many months). If you need to train AI models or collect data and then train the models, you must be aware that it’s a long-term investment.

The list of challenges doesn’t end here. However, some of them are related strictly to the development process, such as data protection and integrations — and these issues will be covered later in the article.

Read also: Athlete tracking system – definition & benefits

How much does an AI fitness app cost?

You are probably wondering about the cost of developing AI-powered fitness apps. Unfortunately, it is practically impossible to estimate the price without details, as there are many variables in every project. However, it’s usually between $50-100K for the MVP and $100-500K for a fully-featured solution.

Once you tell your tech partner more about your idea and share all the requirements, they should be able to tell you more about the price of your AI app development. Each company chooses the functionalities and designs that suit its needs, so it is obvious that the cost of fitness mobile app development varies depending on the specific project requirements.

If you are interested in creating a fitness app for your business, check out our article about the cost of fitness app development.

AI-powered fitness application development challenges

Apart from the business challenges of implementing AI in digital fitness products, there are also some more technical things you should consider.

Fitness data collection

The first and probably the most important is data. You need to have access to huge amounts of data in order to take advantage of artificial intelligence. High data quality is essential for creating an effective workout routine using AI.

Integration with wearables will help you gather useful data; however, you must be aware that such integration may be a complex and time-consuming process. You will also need to establish some standards for ensuring high data quality.

UPDATE 05.06.2024:

While data remains important, advancements in generative AI have reduced the dependency on vast data sets. High data quality is still crucial, but you no longer need enormous amounts of data to build a great AI-powered app.

Data privacy & security

Also, when you store and process data, you deal with certain cyber risks, so data protection should be your priority. Of course, a trusted tech partner will help you build a highly secured AI-powered application, but you must promote best practices in handling data among your staff as well.

Fitness AI app maintenance & updates

Regular updates are something you can’t overlook, as they also increase an app’s security. This helps to ensure a greater user experience and efficiency of your fitness application. In addition, you should keep looking for errors in your digital product and improving the code.

Remember that any external tools you can integrate your app with can be modified, and you need to ensure that any data exchange goes smoothly.

It’s time to move your fitness business model into the future!

AI and machine learning power the best fitness applications on the market, offering personalized workout experiences that meet individual needs. Data analytics and artificial intelligence are the future of the fitness and wellness industry, and, as rising trends, they should not be ignored.

Clients’ expectations are dynamically changing. They require increasingly personalized services and are seeking services and products that meet those needs. Make sure you’re ready for that!