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Nash Consing was riding his bike in Brooklyn last week when wham!<\/em>\u2014he slammed into a door carelessly opened by a woman leaving her Uber<\/a>. The crash left the 25-year-old video editor hurt badly enough to require an ambulance, but not so badly to stop using Strava, an app that lets people track their activities and share them with friends. Still dazed by the collision en route to the hospital, he ended his workout and tapped out an update for his followers.<\/p>\n \u201cJust got hit by a car,\u201d Consing wrote. \u201cI\u2019m heading to the hospital now lol. Rib might be f*cked.\u201d<\/p>\n Little did Consing know that, on the very day of his accident, Strava had just released an AI feature called \u201cAthlete Intelligence.\u201d The app has long supplied detailed metrics like heart rate and speed, but the AI tool means it now also spits out a personalized summary of a user\u2019s workout in the voice of a coach.<\/p>\n Still in shock, Consing could only laugh as Strava\u2019s new AI tool provided feedback on his abruptly ended bike ride. \u201cOuch, hope you\u2019re okay after that car accident!\u201d it read. \u201cDespite the setback, your activity data shows you\u2019re a consistent, well-rounded athlete \u2013 keep up the great work!\u201d<\/p>\n Founded in 2009, Strava has built an impassioned base of fitness nuts that religiously track their exercise regiments and give each other \u201cKudos,\u201d the app\u2019s equivalent of likes. But the first week of its latest feature has drawn skepticism from even its most avid users like Consing, who view Athlete Intelligence as the latest gimmick in the AI explosion. \u201cI do think it is more amusing, but also kind of pointless,\u201d Consing told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cIt just feels more like a meme than anything right now.\u201d<\/p>\n The new AI feature comes at a time when Strava has ridden (or run, hiked, or swum) to the peak of fitness apps, with more than 125 million users and $150 million in venture funding<\/a>. In an interview with Fortune<\/em>, chief product officer Matt Salazar said that the company has been developing its AI tool for newer customers who can often find it difficult to consume the onslaught of information presented by Strava. \u201cThat\u2019s really where we thought AI as an application could really help solve a real consumer problem,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd really help make sense in a very digestible way.\u201d<\/p>\n Strava first tested the feature at a private conference hosted by the company Los Angeles in May, then released it for beta testing with subscribers last week. Salazar said the response has been overwhelmingly positive, though he did acknowledge what he described as an \u201cinjection of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n Because the tool digests activities, some users have had fun gaming the outputs and posting them on Reddit, like one who reported that they put \u201cabducted by aliens and probed\u201d in the description. \u201cYour activity shows an unusual spike in heart rate, likely due to an unknown substance injected during an extraterrestrial encounter,\u201d replied the chatbot. <\/p>\n Others criticized the often obvious (and sometimes incorrect) feedback provided by the feature, with one Reddit user commenting that the tool \u201cdoesn\u2019t add value and probably costs them a ton of money.\u201d<\/p>\n Salazar emphasizes Strava\u2019s new AI tool is intended more for novice athletes, though he didn\u2019t provide specifics on how Strava plans to build it out or integrate it with other features, saying that he couldn\u2019t \u201cget too much into [the] future roadmap.\u201d He did add that AI could help with route suggestions. Strava has put more of a focus in recent years on its mapping technology, including an acquisition<\/a> of the app Fatmap in 2023.<\/p>\n Despite its dominant position, Strava still faces wide competition, including more personalized options like Nike<\/a> Run Club and Runna which provide customized training plans, as well as smartwatch companies like Garmin and Coros which offer similar features. Salazar noted that other apps like Runna are compatible with Strava.<\/p>\n Since the launch of OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT in November 2022, companies have rushed to capitalize on the AI hype wave, often with disastrous consequences. When Google<\/a> rolled out an AI box at the top of its search function in May, users discovered a slew of incorrect answers, including recommending<\/a> a pizza recipe with Elmer\u2019s glue.<\/p>\n Salazar pushed back on the idea that Strava was trying to shoehorn AI into its platform. \u201cJust putting in technology for technology\u2019s sake, I agree, is not a worthwhile endeavor,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the business of solving real problems.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\nAthlete Intelligence<\/h2>\n
\u2018Solving real problems\u2019<\/h2>\n
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