{"id":172734,"date":"2025-10-01T12:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/172734\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T12:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:08:08","slug":"can-ai-stand-in-as-a-personal-trainer-fitness-company-peloton-thinks-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/172734\/","title":{"rendered":"Can AI stand in as a personal trainer? Fitness company Peloton thinks so"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who’s ever gone to the gym knows that a little form correction goes a long way: maybe\u00a0your squat isn’t deep enough,\u00a0your weights aren’t heavy enough\u00a0or your push-up form is weak.<\/p>\n

Usually, a personal trainer would help you with that. But the fitness equipment company\u00a0Peloton is proposing something different: an AI-powered\u00a0camera that detects your movements and\u00a0gives you real-time feedback while you work out.<\/p>\n

“It’s like having an AI-powered personal trainer in your house for a fraction of the price,”\u00a0said Nick Caldwell, chief product officer at Peloton, in an interview with CBC News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s AI,\u00a0though it’s not quite an avatar\u00a0\u2014 the\u00a0Peloton IQ pairs a Siri-like voice with on-screen prompts.<\/p>\n

The company is the latest to incorporate artificial intelligence into its fitness equipment.\u00a0While industry experts and fitness instructors\u00a0caution that the technology has its limitations, they see it as a potential complement \u2014 rather than an outright replacement\u00a0\u2014 for traditional personal trainers.<\/p>\n

“I think any fitness company that wants to be around past, say, Christmas is definitely thinking about how to integrate AI into their offerings,” said Natalia Mehlman\u00a0Petrzela, a history professor at the New School who has researched the fitness industry.<\/p>\n

\"AA rider is shown on a commercially-certified Peloton bike. The company’s ultra-popular\u00a0instructors developed a cult-like following. (Peloton)Celebrity trainers versus AI\u00a0instructors<\/p>\n

Peloton, known for its stationary bikes and instructor-led online workouts, went public in 2019 \u2014 just a few months before a COVID-19 pandemic-era craze for home gym equipment helped it cruise\u00a0to the upper echelons of fitness industry royalty.<\/p>\n

The company’s ultra-popular\u00a0instructors developed a cult-like following,\u00a0becoming an “incredible asset”\u00a0that many riders have\u00a0“parasocial relationships” with, said Petrzela, referring to a one-sided relationship with a celebrity.<\/p>\n

As more people exercised at home, the company’s stock peaked at $162 US per share on Christmas Day in 2020. But once emergency lockdowns ended and gyms opened their doors, its value plummeted. The\u00a0stock now sells for about $9 US\u00a0a share.<\/p>\n

During\u00a0the heyday of Peloton’s popularity, some instructors even nabbed\u00a0their own lucrative sponsorship deals with companies like Adidas and Lululemon\u00a0\u2014 making them probably expensive for Peloton to keep, said Petrzela.<\/p>\n

However, “it\u00a0would be suicide\u00a0to replace those instructors with AI bots, even if they could make them move or look just like them,” she added.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | How Peloton instructors developed a cult-like following:\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Peloton will use data from the company’s existing instructors to train the AI, Caldwell says that the tool will also “guide” users toward\u00a0trainers who could be a good fit for them.<\/p>\n

The goal is not to lure consumers away from their morning run or their gym session:\u00a0“We’re not trying to get everyone to only work out on extra-transit running machines in their house,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But we know that that’s going to be an important part of many people’s fitness, because of the convenience and the affordability of having the equipment in your own home.”<\/p>\n

Can AI\u00a0replace your trainer? Probably not, says instructor<\/p>\n

When it comes to fitness and artificial intelligence, Peloton has company.<\/p>\n

The Carol stationary bike uses AI to build personalized workouts; the company Magic’s AI-powered Mirror\u00a0uses the technology\u00a0to correct form and count reps; the Speediance Gym Monster uses an “AI coach” to suggest adjustments; and equipment company Tonal has integrated AI into its weightlifting machine.<\/p>\n

“There’s a huge financial upside for technology companies to move into the fitness industry because so many of them are already developing this tech,” said Petrzela, noting that wearable devices are already popular in the athletic world.<\/p>\n

But not everyone in the fitness industry is rushing to adopt the latest tech. Personal trainer Carlo Celotti\u00a0keeps it simple at the gym he co-owns in Toronto.<\/p>\n

“If it’s iron and it’s heavy, we’ll probably use it.\u00a0That’s kind of our style. Because at the end of the day, you really don’t need much more than that,” he told CBC News.<\/p>\n

\"ACarlo Celotti, a personal trainer and co-owner of All In One Strength and Conditioning in Toronto, said that artificial intelligence can’t recreate the experience of working with a trainer. (Nisha Patel\/CBC)<\/p>\n

When it comes to using artificial intelligence for exercise, Celotti\u00a0said he welcomes any tools that encourage people to get and stay active \u2014\u00a0but AI can’t recreate the experience of working with a trainer, he adds.<\/p>\n

“There’s times when we’re using verbal cues to correct somebody. Maybe that’s not going to work with certain people and we’ll have to use tactile cues. It’s going to be hard for AI to do something like that where we can,” Celotti said.<\/p>\n

As such, he’s not worried about AI taking people away from his business. Many of those clients come to the gym for the communal experience \u2014\u00a0which was especially evident after the lockdowns ended, he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s putting out a hard effort amongst other people who are doing the same. There’s something about that just brings people together.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone who’s ever gone to the gym knows that a little form correction goes a long way: maybe\u00a0your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-172734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}