Can Equinox Use AI to Coach Its Members Toward Longer, Healthier Lives?

Equinox, like any membership business, is focused on long-lasting relationships with its clients. Now, the New York luxury fitness company is working to extend what "lifelong" means for its members. With a series of AI-boosted initiatives, Equinox is aiming to help its members achieve longer and healthier lives—by way of higher-tier memberships, massage robots and smart cardio machines all focused on longevity. The fascination with living forever is increasingly captivating wellness fanatics. Figures like venture capitalist Bryan Johnson have gone viral for undergoing treatments like plasma transfusions to extend his life. Medical researchers are studying gene therapies to achieve the same feat. Demographers are debating the legitimacy of "blue zones," regions where people are purportedly living longer and healthier lives. And brands like Goop and Sakara are promising consumers the opportunity to reverse aging via peptide injections and wellness supplements. "The world has embraced this idea of longevity, and to do that we definitely need to provide more comprehensive solutions than just saying, 'lift or run,'" Eswar Veluri, the chief technology officer for Equinox Fitness Clubs, told Newsweek. "The coaching has to be something that's provided every day, not once every two days."

Last year, the luxury fitness company introduced "Optimize by Equinox," a $40,000 annual membership aimed at unlocking "the peak of your potentials." Members are fitted with their own health team—a fitness trainer, nutrition coach, sleep coach and massage therapist. Using unique biomarkers, like organ health, metabolism and strength, each expert will tailor personalized programs based on the results of a comprehensive, AI-driven blood test conducted by lab testing and insights company Function Health. Sofiya Milman, the director of human longevity studies at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told Newsweek that there's "very good evidence" that a healthy lifestyle can contribute to both extended health spans—how long a person can live without chronic disease and disabilities—and extended lifespans overall. Those common-sense lifestyle factors include several of the markers that Equinox's longevity program is targeting, like regular exercise, a healthy diet, stress reduction and adequate sleep. Equinox also launched a partnership with robotic massage company Aescape last year. For $60, both members and non-members were invited to experience a 30-minute, AI-powered massage at select Equinox locations across New York City. The fitness chain announced last month that it's expanding its partnership with the eight-year-old startup, bringing Aescape's robots (a charcoal massage table fitted with long, white mechanical arms) into 60 Equinox gym locations nationwide. By the end of the summer, Equinox will be the first fitness brand to integrate the technology at scale. In the same way that Equinox has been predicting its members' needs, Aescape's robots anticipate which parts of a body need massaging. Instead of asking a masseuse to focus on soreness in your lower back, for example, Aescape's machines target specific areas on your body based on data showing where stress was experienced. In other words, the robots are supposed to be able to help your muscles recover before you even feel them aching. "You don't move well unless you recover well," Veluri said. "Having that entire spectrum of data basically allows one to feed off another." He said that to provide holistic wellness solutions, Equinox can't only look at movement, but also factors like nutrition and regeneration. "Our understanding of you comes from knowing more about you, and if I only track what you did when you're in our clubs, I would only have a snapshot that is incomplete of you," Veluri said. Over the past three years, Veluri has also spearheaded Equinox's efforts to upgrade its treadmills so that members can easily log their running stats. Currently, 70 percent of Equinox's treadmills have this capability. By next year, Veluri expects all of Equinox's cardio machine—from treadmills to stationary bikes and ellipticals—to have these AI-assisted functions. He's confident that with more members using these tools, which in turn provides Equinox with more data points, the club's recommendations can be more precise and closer to what members need. "Whether it's the connected treadmills or Aescape or any of the newer offerings, they're intended to embrace some of the emerging trends, and also our own view of where the wellness industry is going," Veluri said. "This is the future of wellness."

Milman, who spends her days studying centenarians, said lifestyle is "absolutely" important in extending how long we can live healthily, but wondered how much these behaviors could really improve overall life expectancy. In her research, a lot of the evidence has pointed to genetics. There's a "very, very elite group" who have the longevity gene, she said. Most of us, however, do not. So, to a certain extent, how long we live is really the lottery of life. "This tells us, yes, we should follow a healthy lifestyle, but right now, there's no evidence that that will get us to 100 if that's the goal that people have," Milman said. Although it's difficult to discern how much time at any gym, or an upgraded membership for an Equinox regular, could boost longevity (since most studies focus on individuals making drastic lifestyle changes, rather than already-healthy people), Milman encouraged people to adopt as many healthy habits as they could. She said even if late adoptees don't see the maximum benefits of those changes, some benefit is better than none. "I once met a man who was 99 years old, who used to swim three times a week and bowl twice a week, was in great shape and looked like he was 70," she said. "He told me that when he was 80 years old, he was actually sedentary and very obese. At the age of 80, he decided to make a change in his life, and he became really healthy and physically active. I think he ended up living to over the age of 100." "I'm not sure that making the change in his life led him to be 100," Milman said."But I think it's an inspirational story that it's really never too late."