How to utilize AI to improve operations and member experience.
As health club members are looking for increasingly personalized workouts and experiences, a popular tool to consider is AI. When used correctly, AI in fitness can revolutionize workflows and increase engagement for staff and members in many ways.
In the latest Thought Leaders digital roundtable, Jessica Yarmey, the founder and CEO of FlexSociety; Omeed Shams, the co-founder and chief product officer of Lumin Fitness; and Beau Bernardo, the fitness director of OneLife Fitness, sat down to discuss how to effectively and ethically implement AI into operations.
At Lumin Fitness, AI is used in many ways to create fun, personalized workout classes. Through their changeable spatial augmented reality technology and LED video walls, an immersive and engaging space can be changed to fit class themes.
They also use AI in coaching models to give individual members a personal motivator. Acting similarly to an assistant coach, the AI trainers use generated voices to increase motivation while the human instructor can focus on engaging the entire class. Tracking technology also gathers data relating to exerciser’s movements and AI then provides insight into their workout including the number of reps, range of motion, power and more.
Along with in exercise classes, Shams explained how members have access to AI right at their fingertips through their club app. Using a hybrid model, they’re hastening the process of writing fitness programming. Software Shams has developed builds upon workouts planned by staff that can give members a digital personal training experience based on what they want to work on that day.
“AI gamifies the whole experience,” explained Shams. “There are so many layers of it we use in these systems. A lot’s happening here. We’d like to call ourselves the smartest fitness studio in the world, so I think it’s necessary we lean into that.”
Though AI is integrated in many facets of Lumin Fitness’ programming, Shams emphasized that AI cannot overshadow human connection. The intention of integrating technology should be to improve member experience as an extension of the staff’s hospitality.
“Everything we design, everything we build, everything we do is intelligent, interactive and individualized,” said Shams. “It’s not AI. Soon, we’re going to live in a world where you probably won’t know human-generated versus AI-generated content, and I would say we want to lean into that. We want these experiences to feel organic and natural in order to deliver the best experience possible.”
Yarmey offered an AI in marketing perspective that echoed Shams sentiment when it comes to effectively integrating these technologies.
Subtlety is imperative. Training or editing generated content to mimic your brand’s voice ensures the efficiency of using AI isn’t counteracted by members not engaging if they feel they’re communicating with a robot.
“We have the ability via AI content creation to write really great content segments marketed to our prospects or current members,” said Yarmey. “It creates the right relationship with the right person before they even walk into our studios or gyms. In some ways, you want that to be in the background. You don’t want to shout from the rooftops that this is an AI-generated piece of content.”
Knowing all of these tips and abilities of AI in the industry can make it seem daunting if you’ve never used it before, but Yarmey emphasized the importance of starting to explore these technologies for marketing purposes. She recommended experimenting with what it can do with personal content — like vacation photos — before implementing it into your business. This allows you to gain a better understanding of AI’s capabilities in an area with less risk.
From there, Yarmey explained how AI can create bulk content that would originally take hours out of a staff member’s workday. Instead, they can spend their time engaging with members and creating relationships that are pivotal to a club’s success.
“In marketing, we always talk about reaching the right person with the right message at the right time,” explained Yarmey. “I think there’s so much opportunity for the fitness industry to lean on AI to help us with that. It’s more of a community driver than anything because your people-to-people time should increase if you’re using these tools correctly.”
Bernardo expanded on Yarmey’s idea, noting the effectiveness of AI teaching leads about your offerings and pricing via chatbot can build anticipation. Then, the quality of the first meeting between an employee and member is of higher quality.
Another method AI can improve member experience and connection with staff Bernardo noted is with wearables integration. With the capabilities of tracking technology, AI can help trainers understand where members are in their fitness journey and increase results.
“Personal trainers should feel empowered from the standpoint of being able to have an extension of themselves and an assistant coach,” said Bernardo. “Create an environment where AI is the norm, how you communicate through your coach and how you workout. People are still looking for that human interaction and that community, but AI is definitely at the forefront for health clubs.”
With the multiple capabilities for AI in fitness, it increasingly seems this technology is the future of the industry. New software is popping up constantly, and starting to explore what it can do has never been easier. These industry experts have already taken the first steps, and it’s never too late to do the same.
