Apple is pulling back its work on a planned artificial intelligence-powered health coaching service, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Apple expert Mark Gurman reported that Apple will delay a feature that would have expanded the company’s health ecosystem.
The initiative, internally known as a virtual health coach tied to Apple Watch and iPhone data, was expected to use AI to offer personalized fitness, nutrition and wellness guidance.
However, Apple has wound down development in recent weeks as it faces growing competition in AI-driven health services.
Why It Matters
Health has been a core pillar of Apple’s integrations strategy, and the Apple Watch is positioned as a flagship device for fitness tracking, heart monitoring and other wellness features.
A virtual AI coach would have represented a significant leap.
However, applying generative AI to sensitive areas like health has proven a challenge, given the importance of accuracy, liability and user trust.
What To Know
According to Bloomberg, Apple had been developing an AI-driven health coach designed to analyze data from Apple devices and provide tailored recommendations on exercise, diet and sleep.
The service was linked to a broader revamp of Apple’s Health app and was expected to rely heavily on machine learning models trained on user data.
Now, however, Apple has lowered its ambitions, although it has not yet canceled the idea outright.
Bloomberg noted that the decision to scale back followed a leadership shake-up inside Apple’s health division. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, took over oversight of health after longtime executive Jeff Williams retired at the end of last year.
Per Bloomberg, Cue did not believe Apple’s existing plan for the AI-powered service met company standards, prompting a rethink of the approach.
What People Are Saying
Commenters on Reddit’s r/apple forum had a wide range of opinions.
Some feel that Apple is quickly falling behind in its AI technology.
“Apple needs to figure out the basics first,” one commenter noted. “The watch can somehow automatically detect when I doze off for two minutes, yet it is absolutely useless at automatically detecting physical activity unless I manually tell it I’m starting a workout.”
Others, however, felt that Apple is being prudent.
“I need people to stop drinking the AI [Kool-Aid] and realize that Apple is not ‘behind’ or ‘losing,’ it’s being prudent and realistic,” another commenter posted. “Which will pay dividends as the other tech companies destroy their products in the name of unreliable and unbaked technology dressed up in marketing.”
“It’s because they tested internal models, GPT and Gemini, and all hallucinated on health at least 10-15 [percent] of the time and Apple cannot risk legal liability on health features,” a third individual suggested.
What’s Next
Apple may revisit the concept once its broader AI platform matures, but the company appears in no rush to introduce generative AI into an area as high-stakes as health.
Unlike features such as photo editing or writing assistance, wellness recommendations carry far greater risk if the technology produces inaccurate or misleading guidance.
For now, Apple is expected to continue focusing on incremental improvements to the Health app and Apple Watch ecosystem, while keeping more ambitious AI-driven coaching tools in development behind the scenes.
Newsweek has reached out to Apple for comment via email.
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, click here.
Read the full article here
