A question I've been hearing more lately, in one form or another: "AI can build me a training plan in thirty seconds. it's a lot cheaper. Why wouldn't I just use that?" Or "Did you see that new training platform?" (It seems like there is a new AI Coach every week...)
They're fair questions, and I'm not going to pretend all the tools are bad(though some most certainly are). They aren't, like all tools it depends on how they are used and by whom. The better question is how you decide what's right for you. So let's go through what each one does well, where some limits are, and who I think should use what. This isn't a deep dive on AI, we will save that for another time., this is to help you sort through some decisions.
What AI does well (and where it stops)
It's fast. And it's getting faster. You can have a week of workouts in the time it takes to fill a bottle. For a lot of riders, that alone is a big step up from guessing.
It's cheap, or at least cheaper. For many people, that matters, and it should. Prices of course vary depending on what model you are using, or if you are using a dedicated platform/shell.
It's always on. Questions at 11pm, a plan rewrite at 5am, no waiting for a reply. That's genuinely useful, but it's a double-edged sword. If every doubt gets answered instantly, you never have to sit with the decision (or even make one) and trust your own read of your body. Over time, this can chip away at self-efficacy, the belief that you can figure things out and make good calls on your own. Learning to make those calls is a big part of becoming more in tune with yourself and ultimately a better athlete.
It takes a general approach. If you sit near the middle of the bell curve, a general approach may work fine for a while. But general advice has a ceiling. The further you get from "average" (your schedule, your history, your recovery, your goals), the less a standard answer fits.
It relies heavily on your input. This one is easy to overlook. AI only knows what you tell it. Well, and what's on the internet. If you leave out the stressful month at work, the nagging knee, or the fact that you've slept five hours a night for a week, AI will fill in the blanks and the guidance will sound confident, but be built on a partial picture. Garbage in, polished garbage out. If you want to combat this you need to provide a lot of data and details about the context of your life.
What a coach does well (and what it costs)
Coaches vary a lot, more than AI does. That cuts both ways. A great coach can change your trajectory. A mediocre one can be worse than a decent AI tool. Who you hire matters.
Good coaches work at the intersection of data and connection. The numbers tell us what happened. You tell us how it felt, what else is going on, and what you're thinking of heading into race day. Neither half is enough alone, and that overlap is where we operate.
More accountability, more connection. Someone is looking at your file and expecting you to show up. Someone notices when you go quiet. I can't tell you the number of times I have made notes on how an athlete sounded, not just on what they said.
It costs more. No way around that.
And yes, we have to sleep. I'm not answering at 2am. For most athletes, that's fine, and honestly a little healthy.
So which one should you pick?
Here's how I'd frame it:
You just want a workout to show up: AI is a great fit.
You want a "yes man": AI will happily agree with you, tell you the plan looks great, and rarely push back.
You want accountability: that's a coach.
You want connection: also a coach.
Neither answer is wrong. It depends on what you're actually looking for from the process. (I will say if your goal is high performance, or the best performance possible for you, there is a reason coaches exist and the majority of those operating at the highest levels has one, or more...)
The best of both worlds
There's a third option, and it's the one I'd point most people toward: work with a professional coach who knows how to leverage the technology available. The tools handle the data mining, speed and the processing; the coach brings experience, judgment, context, and the relationship.
The key is finding a coach who isn't just a puppet for AI. If someone is pasting your data into a chatbot and forwarding you the output, you can do that yourself for less (seriously, don't waste your money). You want someone who sits at the intersection of data, technology, and real-world context, including the full person you are, not just the numbers on a screen or a script.
At Contour, that intersection is where we like to work. As a trained sport scientist, I love this kind of work. If you're curious how we could work together and leverage data and AI to help you keep moving forward, reach out.