GoKawiilThis is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.
Last week, our editor-in-chief Nilay Patel messaged me about his new Whoop band, which he’d gotten thanks to a generous yearlong offer from Chase. A few days later, he sent a cursed screenshot. The Whoop AI coach had recommended several ways in which he could dramatically improve his testosterone levels. Nilay gave me his blessing to share this tidbit, precisely because the idea is laughable to anyone who’s ever known him.
I did laugh, but then noticed dozens of Whoop-related pitches in my email. There seemed to be a lot of whooping about Whoop. A quick Google search revealed that the company had raised a whopping $575 million in a new round of funding, counting Abbott, Mayo Clinic, and LeBron James among its investors. This raised Whoop’s valuation to $10.1 billion and CEO Will Ahmed stated that Whoop’s next step was to prepare for an IPO. The company ended the week by suing Bevel, a startup that it claims is cribbing its app design.
Whoop was clearly in the air. Had something significantly changed since I reviewed it a year ago? I fished my Whoop MG from my Medusa’s nest of testing units. It’d been a while, and it was time to refamiliarize myself with the product. After a week of testing, all my opinions about the redesigned Whoop MG remain the same: a sometimes frustrating wearable that primarily makes sense for athletes.
What has transformed over the past year is the health and wellness tech industry at large. I’ve written about many of those changes here in Optimizer, but if I pull on the threads of why I’m seeing certain trends (AI coaches! Blood, sweat, and urine analysis! AI nutrition!) emerge, it leads back to two companies in particular: Whoop and Oura.
Whoop is clearly in the air.
Wearable technology comes with a basic promise. Wear this device. Monitor your metrics and establish a baseline. If you do, you’ll be able to see when your body starts deviating from the norm. Then, you can go to the doctor, armed with a mountain of data. Doing so might just save your life — or, perhaps less dramatically, help you live healthier, longer.
It’s an attractive premise, and it has saved lives. But as I wrote in my CGM feature earlier this week, fulfilling this wearable vision is often harder than it seems and can come at a high personal cost. And this wearable promise is starting to shift. Over the last year or so, I’ve noticed a new cycle emerging. Tell people using wearables will help them take control of their health. To do that more effectively, collect even more specific and specialized data. To make sense of this massive amount of data, inject AI into the process. To justify adding AI, hop on wellness trends and frame this as a more personalized way to take control of their health.
From there, the hype cycle evolves. To reinforce the previous feature cycle, reemphasize that wearable tech will not only help people take control of their health, it will help them live longer. To do that effectively, introduce new scores that predict lifespan and aging. To make sense of new scores, update AI bots to dispense generic health advice as a resource. To justify adding AI, remind them that this personalized experience holds the key to living a longer, healthier life.
Rinse and repeat with a new wellness trend.
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