is a senior reporter focusing on wearables, health tech, and more with 13 years of experience. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.
Apple just launched the watchOS 26 public beta, which means everyone can now try the latest software heading to the Apple Watch this fall. That includes new Apple Intelligence features, such as Workout Buddy, new messaging features, the Wrist Flick gesture, and more.
I’ve been using the developer beta and have some thoughts to share. Apple Intelligence doesn’t arrive on watchOS 26 with a bang. So, why bring it to the watch now, and why this particular set of features?
David Clark, Apple’s senior director of software engineering for watchOS, told me it was a matter of highlighting the Apple Watch’s “core competencies”: fitness and staying connected.
Workout Buddy
AI fitness features are all the rage. Fitness tracking generates a mountain of data, and contextualizing it into digestible insights is a Herculean task — a task AI is supposedly good at. Even so, while watching the Workout Buddy sizzle reel during the WWDC keynote, I morphed into Tina from Bob’s Burgers. In it, you see a woman run through a neighborhood as an AI-generated voice reads out her pace and other stats. Minutes after the keynote ended, my phone buzzed with texts. They all asked the same question: how much am I going to hate this Workout Buddy?
That description pretty much sums it up. If you were hoping for a chatbot, this isn’t it.
After using it, I’d venture: not that much, actually. Workout Buddy is more subtle than the sizzle reel implied.
“An important challenge to be considered when applying any technology, AI or otherwise, is how can real value be added to an experience?” explains Clark. He notes Apple Watch is already adept at tracking activities, but with Workout Buddy, the goal was to “bring something that was less technical data” and more motivational.
Workout Buddy begins every session with a pep talk and ends with a summary of what you just did. The middle of your workout is where the AI magic is supposed to happen.
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