Whoop is a long-standing health and fitness company that makes one of the most in-depth fitness wearables you can buy. Favored by athletes and celebrity endorsers like LeBron James and Michael Phelps, Whoop has dropped a new feature that may make it more appealing to the average person: an AI fitness coach.

According to Whoop, it's the first fitness wearable with an AI coach available to interpret your data, help you plan workouts and reach your goals. Whoop Coach is intended to revolutionize on-demand personalized advice and recommendations. 

I got to test Whoop and its new AI coach, which is still in beta. While this feature may not make the high yearly subscription cost worth it for everyone, it's cool if you want advice tailored to your wellness journey. 

What is the Whoop band? 

When I first started wearing my Whoop, I was surprised to see no screen or buttons. Everything is done within the app. I got another surprise when I logged into the app. Whoop doesn't track the typical factors that other wearable devices do. You won't get any insights into your steps, stairs or active minutes. 

It measures only strain, sleep and recovery with the help of five LEDs, a body temperature sensor and four photodiodes. Despite being limited to these three metrics, it measures them well, presenting them in charts and graphs that help demonstrate how they interact with each other. 

Things I liked about the Whoop 4 band:

• Personalized data based on your sleep, strain and recovery.
• The app is easy to use, with tabs for each metric. 
• The charger slides onto the band, so you don't have to worry about forgetting to put it back on after it's charged. 
• Whoop says you should get about five days off one charge. I found that to be true. 
• Lifetime warranty as long as you bought it from Whoop and have an active membership. 

Things I didn't like:

• The optional alarm that vibrates the band to wake you up was effective, though the double tap that's supposed to turn it off didn't always work. Most mornings, I had to hit it several times to get it to stop. 
• The charger was difficult to slide onto the band the first few times. 
• Switching bands was a frustrating experience because the way Whoop hinges is not intuitive. 
• The band is waterproof, though because it is so wide, it took at least two hours to dry. 
• The Whoop membership is steep, with no monthly payment option. An annual membership costs $239 upfront and $399 for 24 months. 

Whoop also sells clothing -- sports bras, underwear, tops and bottoms -- that the tracker slips into. So you're not limited to just wearing it on your wrist. I like this versatility because wearing my Fitbit on one wrist and Whoop on the other felt intrusive sometimes. And though the Whoop 4 is 33% smaller than the previous generation, it's still a little larger than I like for my wrist. It felt like a backpack buckle around my wrist. However, I would happily slip it into a pair of leggings to still get the data that Whoop offers. 

Introducing Whoop Coach

Whoop just launched the introduction of Whoop Coach into the app. It's powered by GPT4, the advanced generative AI system from OpenAI. Two coaching options are available: Customized with your data, and Education and Support only. Whoop recommends using the customized option, which is meant to offer you on-demand fitness and wellness advice and recommendations, all based on the data that Whoop collects. Education and support will only yield generic coaching recommendations. 

So, instead of looking up a general workout, Whoop Coach can create one based on your strain, recovery and sleep from the previous days. Not only does this help make sure you don't push your body too hard, but it also allows you to swap out movements that don't make sense for your body. For example, I don't enjoy integrating push-ups into my workouts. Whoop Coach recommended alternatives like planks and dumbbell bench presses to target the same muscle groups.

What it was like talking to Whoop Coach 

I expected the Whoop Coach to be more prominent than it is in the app. Instead of taking away from the data on the overview page, the little black bar for Whoop Coach is located under the strain, recovery and sleep diagram. 

I spent a lot of time interacting with the AI coach, asking general questions on sleep, fitness and recovery. The more I used it, the more specific I got about my performance. In general, the advice and recommendations that Whoop Coach gave were solid. In reference to the sleep advice, it was in line with the basics of what I recommend to readers to sleep better at night. 

The interface is similar to any chat feature out there, though a few features stood out to me. 

Chat threads

Many messaging platforms require you to scroll back through the various messages they've exchanged if they would like to reference past interactions. Better options have a search bar that cuts out the scrolling. Whoop Coach doesn't have a search bar, though it offers a unique chat organization feature: multiple threads.

Next to the chat bar, there is a plus icon. This allows you to have several different conversations with the AI Coach; no more scrolling or searching after you've changed the subject numerous times. I used this feature to help organize what topics I was learning about. The sleep thread only talks about sleep; the fitness chat only contains strain and exercise content. 

In the top right corner of the chat, there is an icon that looks like two word bubbles. This brings up your chat history, where you can navigate between threads. 

Topic suggestions

Whoop is one of the most robust wearable devices out there. It gives you a ton of information, though it's not what you expect. Whoop doesn't measure steps, active minutes or how many stairs you've climbed. That means to use Whoop, there's a bit of a learning curve with understanding what strain, sleep and recovery are measuring and what it means for you.

Whoop Coach is a great way to solve this pain point. You can ask the AI chat anything, though there are suggested prompts if you don't know where to start. So if you start from scratch with Whoop, you have a built-in coach that will walk you through everything you need. 

Personalization 

At the most basic level, Whoop Coach is an excellent tool for education and helping you understand how to use the app. It's sort of like a hypercharged walk-through of the app.

That said, the more you put into it, the more personalized your responses will be. It's best to wear the band as much as possible and fill out the "journal" daily. To get the most out of the Whoop Coach, you have to interact with it. 

I asked the Whoop Coach, "Have I been sleeping OK?" In response, it provided me with a snapshot of my recent sleep activity, including how long I spent in the slow wave and REM sleep. This offers a different understanding of information and allows the AI coach to provide actionable tips to improve performance. 

Whoop Coach privacy 

Whoop Coach's privacy disclosure is clear and concise. Whoop's large language model partner has a "Zero-Retention/Zero Training Policy" for the anonymized Whoop data. This policy means that your data will not be kept or stored, nor will it be used to train any LLM algorithms or technology. 

Privacy isn't my only concern when it comes to interacting with AI for health information, especially after a recent study found that AI tools have the potential to generate harmful content that may trigger eating disorders. 

Whoop has the best intentions: helping you achieve goals and improve your health during your fitness journey. All of the responses from Whoop were educational and in line with the advice I give readers. When I asked how to lose weight fast, I received a response that encouraged me to focus on losing weight in a healthy and sustainable way, like drinking water and focusing on overall health, not just the number on the scale. It also included a sentence about consulting a health care professional before you start a weight loss journey. 

I didn't have any questionable responses from Whoop. The hyperfocus on personalization based on data likely helps keep the responses away from general or harmful answers that may unintentionally trigger people. 

Final verdict: Is Whoop Coach worth it?

The Whoop Coach is in beta, and you should expect more functions and enhancements to the tool in the coming months. However, I was impressed with Whoop Coach. It was a helpful feature that allowed me to quickly understand Whoop's key metrics and how they can help me improve my performance. 

I liked Whoop Coach, though I'm not sure this feature makes it more widely appealing to ordinary people. With the prices where they are ($239 upfront for an annual membership and $399 upfront for two years) and the lack of a monthly payment option, I just don't see Whoop being something the average person would want to invest in, even with Whoop Coach. 

It's still best reserved for athletes or someone who is serious about fitness training. Still, the Whoop Coach is a great addition to the app.

Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post.