“Eat your spinach,” says Suzy’s mother.

“Actually, based on her recent vitamin intake, Suzy should probably focus on eating carrots for the next two days,” counters the AI-driven fitness app.

OK, the chances are pretty slim of that exchange every actually happening, but it came to mind as we read about the rapid rise of fitness startups that are tapping AI with the goal of mimicking human assessments – say, from fitness coaches, dieticians and even doctors – to help users manage their personal fitness and diet programs.

According to a recent article in the India-based Economic Times, there’s no shortage of benefits to this development. “AI systems are infinitely scalable, so these companies can serve millions with relatively little manpower. They are also far better than humans in identifying patterns and learning from millions of data points. (And) their accuracy will only improve as sensor technology gets better.”

Not surprisingly, the flexibility and scalability of AI-driven apps is leading to a rapid expansion of the role of fitness apps to include a focus on lifestyle conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity. 

For example, says Vishal Gondal, cofounder of GoQii, which calls its offering a comprehensive digital health and wellness solution, “Between your mobile phone and wearable, you are able to get a lot of health parameters live. The job of a service like GoQii is to use this data and, along with AI, make predictions to warn people of a catastrophic health situation down the line. It’s like the speedometer on the car that warns you how fast you’re going so that you can make adjustments and avoid crashing.” 

Today, GoQii’s wearable can track blood pressure and heart rate. An ECG functionality is also expected soon. The company says it tracks around 300 parameters in any particular user daily, translating to thousands of instances in just 1 month.

For now, these digital fitness services operate on a monthly or yearly subscription model, but they could start eyeing additional revenue streams from data sharing in future. GoQii has already partnered with Max Bupa Life to enable its users to avail lower insurance premiums based on their fitness data. Data sharing with hospitals too is possible in the near future, with doctors getting a better picture of a patient’s health based on diet and fitness data.