What Is AI Personal Training?

Most workout apps hand you a list of exercises and leave you alone. Ray is an AI personal trainer that does what a human trainer does: it learns about you, programs your workouts, coaches you through them by voice, listens to your feedback, and adjusts everything based on what it learns. The difference is it costs $19.99 per month instead of $400-1,800.

AI personal training is still a new category, and most products that use the label are really just workout generators. They pick exercises for you, but they don’t coach you through the workout or adapt when life gets in the way. Ray was built around voice coaching and real-time adaptation, which is closer to what a human trainer actually does.

Here’s what that looks like in practice.

A real AI personal trainer manages your entire fitness routine, not just individual workouts. Ray handles four things that used to require a human:

Programming. Based on your goals, fitness level, available equipment, and schedule, Ray builds your workout plan for the week. It balances muscle groups, manages intensity, and factors in recovery. If you worked out Monday and Tuesday, Ray knows Wednesday should be lighter or focus on different muscles. It also pulls data from your Apple Watch to see your overall activity, so it’s not just tracking Ray workouts. It sees the full picture.

Coaching. During the workout itself, Ray guides you through each exercise by voice. It tells you what to do, when to rest, and how to adjust. This is the biggest gap between Ray and most fitness products on the market. Other apps display exercises on screen and let you follow along. Ray coaches you through every set, hands-free. The difference matters: voice coaching keeps you focused, while screen-following still leaves you making decisions mid-workout.

Listening. After a workout (or during one), you can tell Ray what worked and what didn’t. Didn’t like an exercise? Say so, and Ray swaps it out. Feeling low energy? It dials things back. You do this by voice, the same way you’d talk to a human trainer between sets. Most other fitness products require tapping through menus, which breaks the flow.

Adapting. Every workout teaches Ray more about you. What weight you can handle, which exercises you prefer, how often you actually show up, and how your body responds to different training styles. Over weeks and months, your program becomes increasingly specific to you. A human trainer does this through memory and intuition. Ray does it through data, and it never forgets a single session.

A standard workout app is a library. It gives you access to hundreds of exercises and pre-built programs, then leaves the decisions to you: which program to pick, when to work out, what to do if you miss a day, when to increase the weight, how to modify exercises you can’t do.

For people who already know what they’re doing, that works fine. For the majority, and particularly for people who’ve started and stopped fitness routines multiple times, it doesn’t. Decision fatigue is a real barrier. A 2022 study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology found that the cognitive load of planning workouts is one of the primary reasons people don’t follow through on exercise intentions.

Ray removes most of those decisions. You open it up, and it tells you what to do today based on everything it knows about you. That’s the difference between a library and a coach.

Here’s what that looks like side by side:

AI personal training products range from about $13 to $30 per month. Ray costs $19.99/month. Here’s how that compares to the alternatives:

The cost difference between a human trainer and Ray is roughly 20-90x. That matters because one of the biggest predictors of fitness success is sustainability, and most people can’t sustain $200+ per month indefinitely.

The relevant question isn’t whether Ray is as good as the best human trainer you could find. It’s whether Ray at $19.99/month is better than no trainer at all, which is the reality for most people.

Not entirely. A human trainer offers things AI can’t match right now: hands-on form correction, the ability to read your body language and energy in a room, and a personal relationship that creates accountability through genuine human connection.

But here’s what the data says about the comparison:

Fitness apps without real coaching retain about 3-4% of users after 30 days, according to industry benchmarks. Human personal trainers retain 60-70% of clients at six months. The gap is enormous, and it’s almost entirely explained by accountability, personalization, and presence during the workout, not by better exercise selection.

Ray sits between these two. It delivers the accountability and personalization that standard apps miss, at a price point that makes long-term use realistic. Ray can’t replace the best human trainers. But it delivers something far closer to the human training experience than a workout library does.

For the roughly 80% of adults who want to exercise more but can’t access or afford a human trainer, AI personal training may be the most practical option available.

Not all AI personal trainers are built the same. Most are workout generators with an AI label. Here’s what separates the real ones, and what Ray was specifically built to do:

Does it coach you during the workout, or just before it? Most fitness products hand you a plan and disappear. Ray stays with you during the workout, coaching you through every set by voice. Being coached through a set feels different from reading instructions off a screen, and the retention data reflects that.

Does it listen and adjust in real time? You should be able to say “that was too heavy” or “I only have 15 minutes” and get an immediate adjustment. A real trainer doesn’t say “sorry, that’s the plan.” With Ray, you tell it what needs to change by voice, and it adapts on the spot.

Does it learn from your history? A good AI trainer should know what you did last week, last month, and three months ago. It should notice that you always skip Friday workouts, that you prefer dumbbells over barbells, and that your squat weight has plateaued. Ray remembers every session and uses that history to shape your future programming.

Does it adapt to your real life? You’re traveling with no equipment. You have 20 minutes instead of 45. You’re exhausted from a bad night’s sleep. A real trainer adjusts for all of this. Ray does too.

Does it see your full activity picture? Ray connects to your Apple Watch and sees everything you’ve done throughout the week, not just your Ray workouts. Walks, runs, yard work, a long hike on Saturday. That gives it a more complete picture of your week than most human trainers get from a weekly check-in.

AI personal training works well for a specific type of person, and less well for others.

Ray is a strong fit if you:

It’s probably not the right fit if you:

Here’s the full experience:

Ray connects to your Apple Watch and tracks what you’ve done throughout the week. Not just Ray workouts, but all your activity. It uses that data, along with your goals, equipment, and schedule, to program your workouts for the week. The programming balances intensity, muscle groups, and recovery automatically.

When you start a workout, Ray coaches you through it by voice. It tells you what exercise is next, counts your reps using computer vision, and lets you know when to rest. If something isn’t working (wrong exercise, too heavy, not enough time), you tell Ray with your voice, the same way you’d tell a human trainer. It adjusts immediately.

After the workout, Ray asks what you thought. What you liked, what you didn’t, what felt too hard or too easy. That feedback shapes tomorrow’s session and next week’s program.

Over time, Ray gets to know you. It learns your preferences, your patterns, your strengths and weaknesses. Your program becomes yours, not a template with your name on it.

Ray costs $19.99 per month.

For general fitness (strength training, mobility, stretching, and conditioning), AI personal trainers like Ray are safe for most healthy adults. They’re not a substitute for medical advice or physical therapy. If you have a specific injury or condition, consult a doctor or physical therapist before starting any new fitness program, AI-guided or otherwise.

Ray uses computer vision through your phone’s camera to count reps. It’s generally accurate for standard exercises like squats, push-ups, and curls. More complex movements can be harder to track. Ray continues to improve its accuracy with each update.

No. Ray programs workouts with whatever equipment you have, including none. Bodyweight-only workouts, dumbbell routines, and full gym setups all work. Ray asks about your available equipment during setup and adjusts programming accordingly.

Yes. Put in your earbuds, start your workout, and Ray coaches you through it by voice. You don’t need to stare at your phone.

Workout videos are the same for everyone and don’t adapt. Ray learns your fitness level, tracks your progress, and adjusts your program over time. It also coaches you through the workout rather than demonstrating and leaving you to follow along.

By Colin Raney, Founder of Ray
Published February 2026
Last updated: February 2026

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