Would you use an Ai-powered fitness app?

A researcher at the University of Saskatchewan is trying to determine what factors influence how well different demographics take to Ai fitness apps.

So far, Dr. Shan Wang has determined that the older generations prefer a more human-like model, and user gratification is higher if there is trust between the user and the Ai coach.

“If we find that the Ai fitness app is more acceptable for those who have a higher rate of social interaction, then those applications can target those people in their marketing campaign.”

In a separate study, she is also researching what characteristics make a digital platform most resilient.

Dr. Shan Wang says during the Covid-19 pandemic, it was imperative that digital platforms were able to both meet change head on and also see it as an opportunity to evolve. She is now working on a questionnaire that can be given to platform developers to assess their own apps.

“By our research, we propose that if a platform is diversified enough… they may involve into a platform of higher resilience than others.”

She adds that there are two types of digital resiliency: absorbative, where platforms try to maintain digital stability by eliminating change, and transformative, where the app will embrace the change and attempt to improve.