Back in 2014, Google and Apple launched health and fitness platforms for their respective mobile operating systems. While Apple’s HealthKit API and Health app took off, eventually becoming key to the success of the Apple Watch, the Google Fit app failed to make as big of an impact, and faded into relative obscurity.
Unsurprisingly, Google isn’t satisfied with that result, which is why the company is now reportedly working on a new health and fitness AI assistant called Google Coach. According to Android Police, Google Coach is more than just an exercise tracker, urging you to stay active throughout the day. Using the data that Google collects about your health, the assistant will recommend workouts, track your progress and give you ideas about what to do next.
In addition to providing workout recommendations and tracking your activity at the gym, Google Coach will also help you monitor your diet and will even provide healthy meal suggestions. If you’re out and about, Google Coach might point you in the direction of a restaurant with healthy choices. If you’re at home, Google Coach could offer up a meal plan and even send a shopping list to your email so you can gather the necessary items.
As Android Police points out, this sounds like a worrisome amount of notifications, but Google is supposedly working on a system of “conversational notifications” that would group several alerts into one: drink a glass of water, get your steps in for the day, and don’t forget to take your medication.
Android Police’s source says that Google will focus on Wear OS for the initial rollout of Google Coach, but that there will be support for Android phones as well. As always, Google could end up changing its plans down the road or scrap Google Coach altogether, but it’s clear that Google needs to update its health and fitness strategy.
