AI Is Coming for Fitness. Will You Use It or Lose It?
The AI in fitness and wellness market hit $9.8B in 2024 and could hit $46.1B by 2034 (InsightAce Analytic, 2024).
Artificial intelligence has moved from buzzword to gym floor. That time has passed. It’s in the apps, in the wearables, even creeping into your members’ weekly routines (and creeping some of them out, let’s be real). But before we drown in futuristic headlines, let’s ask: what does the data actually say, and why should you, as a fitness or wellness professional, care?
Adoption Is High & Trust Is Wobbly
Nearly half of consumers (49%) use AI fitness or wellness apps daily, and another 30% check in weekly (ABC Fitness Summer Wellness Watch Report, 2025). That’s not fringe behavior; I’d say that’s brushing-your-teeth frequency.
But here’s the tension: 55% of people worry about privacy, and the trust gap is generational. Millennials and Gen Z are generally fine with a chatbot telling them when to sleep. Boomers? Only 12% say AI supports their health goals — and just 2% fully trust the apps (ABC Fitness, 2025).
So here’s the deal: You’re running a split-screen audience. The 25-year-old in your HIIT class may lean on AI meal planning. The 65-year-old in your yoga session? She may not trust an algorithm to recommend a playlist, much less a training load, so program accordingly.
AI personal training is forecast to jump from $13.3B in 2023 to $89B by 2030
The Market’s Booming — Especially in Coaching
The AI in fitness and wellness market hit $9.8B in 2024 and could hit $46.1B by 2034 (InsightAce Analytic). But the really loud stat is this: AI personal training is forecast to jump from $13.3B in 2023 to $89B by 2030 (Rezerv). That’s steroids-level acceleration, folks.
AND personalized coaching is the rocket fuel. If you’re a trainer or operator, it’s less about whether AI will creep into your space and more about how fast.
Behavior Change Is Real (and Measurable)
Skeptical? Fair. Good! But we’ve got proof: in Singapore, an AI nudging system led to a 6.17% bump in daily steps and a 7.61% increase in weekly activity across 84,764 users in just 12 weeks (arXiv preprint).
That’s not life-changing on its own, but scale it across your member base, and suddenly AI isn’t just logging data, it’s changing it.
Takeaway: Don’t dismiss AI as window dressing. It can move the needle on actual behaviors, not just pretty graphs.
Every wristband is a potential loyalty tether.
Wearables = The Gateway Drug?
More than 534M wearables shipped in 2024 (IDC). Wrist-worn devices — the bread and butter of fitness tracking — were up 10.5% year-over-year in Q1 2025 (IDC, 2025). Add in Apple’s new watchOS 11 Training Load metric (Apple) and Fitbit’s Gemini AI Health Coach rolling out this fall (Google), and the wrist is becoming ground zero for personalized fitness.
Look at it this way: Every wristband is a potential loyalty tether. Ignore wearables, and you’re ignoring the way members are already tracking themselves.
GLP-1 Changes the Game (Again)
By 2030, the GLP-1 drug market (think Ozempic, Wegovy) is expected to hit $105B (Morgan Stanley). Already, roughly 16M Americans are on them (Washington Post). Gyms aren’t ignoring it: Equinox is building GLP-1 protocols, while Life Time launched Miora, a medical wellness program (Industry reports).
Expect members to walk in on these meds. Your job isn’t to be their doctor; it’s to protect their muscle mass, their strength, and their sense of progress. Ignore this shift, and you’re missing one of the biggest consumer health pivots of the decade.
Compliance is Survival
Here’s the unglamorous part: regulation.
The FTC has extended the Health Breach Notification Rule (HBNR) to cover fitness apps not under HIPAA (Alston & Bird). Translation: if your shiny new AI coach mishandles member data, it’s your problem. However, that was 2024 and there’s a new administration, so who knows …
The EU AI Act is phasing in between 2025–2027, and fitness AI could be flagged “high risk” if it strays into medical territory (EU Commission).
The World Health Organization warns against AI “hallucinations” in health — a polite way of saying, “Please don’t let your chatbot wing it” (WHO).
Privacy isn’t a side note. It’s a brand risk. One misstep, and your gym’s reputation could be doing backwards burpees for years.
Closing Prompt
AI in fitness and wellness isn’t about replacing trainers or practitioners. It’s about scaling personalization and freeing humans to do what humans do best: connect, motivate and hold people accountable.
The opportunity is huge and the pitfalls are real. The professionals who win won’t be the ones who slap “AI-powered” on a product. They’ll be the ones who know how to translate the data into trust and outcomes.
And if that sounds like a balancing act, well, it is. But then again, so is a Turkish get-up — and you’ve mastered those before. That reminds me, I need to practice mine …
