As the Apple Watch Public Beta breaks cover, we can’t wait to download it and test all the cool new features coming to the best Apple Watches currently supported in September. The headline new addition this year is a redesigned Workout app on the watch, complete with its own generative AI – which Apple calls a Workout Buddy.
During the keynote presentation at this year’s WWDC conference, we saw a promotional video showcasing Workout Buddy in action: an AI voice, generated in the moment, telling a runner encouraging details about her workout, and how it compares to her historic stats.
We got to speak to Deidre Caldbeck, Apple’s Senior Director of Product Marketing for Apple Watch and Health, alongside Jay Blahnik, Apple’s VP of Fitness Technologies. Naturally, we had a lot of questions about this fitness-friendly AI assistant.
Blahnik said: “It’s truly a first-of-its-kind workout experience, taking your workout data in a privacy-friendly way in the right doses – kicking off your workout, ending your workout, and breaking through in moments that make sense during your workout.”
Privacy was mentioned before I could bring it up: according to Apple’s messaging, Apple Intelligence-based features such as Workout Buddy are processed using a combination of on-device processing, so the data never leaves your device, and what Apple’s calling Private Cloud Compute, which uses Apple silicon servers to understand and perform complex tasks in such a way that even Apple can’t read the information being shared.
It’s a Buddy, not a Coach
Workout Buddy is a motivational and inspiring tool, not a source of criticism or tough love to help you push past your next fitness plateau. Blahnik said: “When you think of a workout buddy, we think of this as not a coach, as a coach would be there trying to push you. Whereas Workout Buddy is really about motivating you based on what you have done and what you’re about to do.”
This lines up with the footage, in which the runner is congratulated for completing her second run this week, and running her fastest mile yet. But what happens when your performance is stagnating, and you don’t have as much positive data to draw from?
Caldbeck says that when designing the feature, they took “a similar approach to what we’ve done with the Activity app and our health features like sleep tracking. We tend not to send you a notification if you didn’t meet your sleep goals. But if you did meet your sleep goals, you’ll hear from the watch to give you that positive reinforcement. We’ll work to find moments that are positive.
“The power of workout buddy is that because it’s generative and because it draws on years of sweat equity, there are motivational moments in there that the feature will find and deliver to you. All the other features in the workout app coexist with Workout Buddy, so your pace alert will tell you if you’re falling below a set pace, you can still have those types of features that will push you towards a goal you’re trying to reach. However, we wanted to keep Workout Buddy motivational and inspiring.”
A generative voice
You could absolutely look at your watch and go to the Fitness app and see most of this data, but you can now get it from a voice generated in the moment that’s unique each time,” says Blahnik, with a hint of glee. “None of this is pre-canned or pre-recorded.”
Workout Buddy starts your exercise with a motivational pep talk, it breaks through to tell you information about your workout at “moments that make sense”, and it offers a closing walk-off summarizing your activity. It draws on historic data and contextual information to do this: for example, it’ll tell you that you’ve burned over 500 calories in the gym, powered by ‘house vibes from Mura Masa’ or whatever you’ve been listening to during your workout.
The voice itself is encouraging and motivational because it copies the voice patterns of a set of celebrity trainers with similar vibes – the Apple Fitness+ instructors.
“We have this amazing group of 28 trainers,” says Blahnik. “Building these AI models requires lots of voice data, and they are among the most welcoming and inclusive trainers in the world. We thought having those voices, whether or not you know the two or three specific models of the trainers we’ve used, whether you use Fitness+ or not, you’ll get a voice in your ear that sounds like what you’d expect from a workout buddy as opposed to something more general.”
It’s just getting started
“Even just pointing out the most basic of data can create a really intimate experience that allows people to feel good about what they’re doing,” says Blahnik.
Caldbeck believes this is just the start: “If you set out to do a mile run, the fastest run you’ve ever done, currently Workout Buddy doesn’t know that’s your mindset, but it can still speak to what the data is. If you happen to set a record or do something very surprising, it’ll add that in as well.” Note the word ‘currently’ in there: as AI features become more sophisticated and able to read patterns, it’s entirely possible future iterations of Workout Buddy will become clever enough to guess when we’re trying for a personal best.
“We think we’ve struck that right balance, and as we get user feedback, you can just imagine where an intimate voice generated in the moment might go, whether it be for deeper insights or better understanding what your goals were,” says Blahnik. “It’s just a really exciting path to be on.”
“We believe this feature is just getting started… The idea is that we could take this data and present it to you in a really lovely way.”
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matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans)
