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Eswar Veluri, the chief technology officer at Equinox, says that when the luxury gym operator is flexing new generative artificial intelligence muscles, the focus tends to center on the two Ps: productivity and personalization.
The productivity bucket is fairly straightforward. Equinox’s team is using AI to summarize documents, create emails, and automate some marketing materials and contracts. Where it gets more interesting for Equinox, which operates more than 100 fitness clubs, is a pilot of a generative AI-enabled feature that offers workout recommendations and nutrition tips.
This tools is built in Equinox’s branded mobile app but only available for employees. The rollout began with the tech team, then corporate employees and instructors, before it could become widely available to all Equinox gym goers if all goes well. This reflects Veluri’s technology playbook: always test internally first.
“Our personal training coaches are probably going to be the most rigorous in terms of the feedback,” says Veluri.
He asserts that the insights from Equinox’s rigorous training data are what sets it apart from the more generalized recommendations that may be produced from standard AI models. “The value is added when we have our proprietary thinking that is embedded with the general recommendation, so that the end user should feel that this is something that I’m getting that is on par with what an Equinox coach would provide,” says Veluri.
There’s also a more valuable feedback loop with the application of generative AI, as Equinox is now able to utilize large language models that can digest written comments from users and then adjust future fitness and nutrition suggestions. Prior variations of these tools would rely on a more simplistic “thumbs up, thumbs down” response.
“That ability for our members to have agency over the recommendations, and for us to be able to incorporate that feedback into modifying the recommendations, is something that would not have been possible if we did not have gen AI,” says Veluri.
Veluri has had a long career at Equinox, joining the fitness company in 2010 as director of digital products and rising up through the ranks to become CTO in 2021. Through that time, Equinox has invested in a mobile app that offers users virtual classes, and invested in more technically advanced treadmills, ellipticals, and other workout machinery.
Over that period of time, the fitness industry has democratized the accessibility of workout data, with fitness trackers like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Garmin enjoying mass adoption and easily tracking steps taken throughout the day, calories burned, sleep, and heart rate. Studies on these devices are fairly limited, but research does indicate that the use of fitness trackers can promote more fitness.
AI could make promoting a healthier lifestyle even easier. One way that Equinox utilizes AI, which predates the generative boom, involves Netflix-styled recommendations for classes that a fitness freak may want to try based on their past preference for yoga or cycling, the weather of the day, and the club locations they tend to frequent. Veluri says after this feature went live, Equinox saw class bookings dramatically increase. That engagement can lead to less club member attrition.
The company has also rolled out a generative AI chatbot that can answer straightforward questions including “What time is my gym open?”
“Our business model is one where we want and encourage our members to use our clubs as often as they can,” says Veluri.
With a scrappy technology team of just around 80 people, Veluri says he has to be careful about spending and doesn’t put too much money into any one tech initiative.
Equinox also has a close relationship with Amazon Web Services, a partner it leaned on to rearchitect its tech stack and streamline workflows for engineers. Previously, Equinox ran workloads on a Windows-based server and each digital fitness service ran as an individual task. That added complexity to the software updates process. While the application infrastructure is now housed more efficiently with AWS, Equinox says it utilizes large language models from various providers, including AWS and Anthropic.
Veluri says the culture he’s created with his technology team is one that encourages everyone to offer suggestions for what mobile app features should be explored next. The team takes a close look at competitor gym and fitness apps to ensure the features Equinox offers are in good shape.
“The biggest advantage of Equinox is that we use the services of our company a lot,” says Veluri. “We also have goals and we also want to achieve results.”
John Kell
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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