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Why Equinox’s CTO is testing a generative AI pilot to suggest workout and nutrition advice

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4 months ago

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Eswar Veluri, the chief technology officer at Equinox, says that when the luxury gym operator is flexing new generative artificial intelligence muscles, the focus tends to center on the two Ps: productivity and personalization.

The productivity bucket is fairly straightforward. Equinox’s team is using AI to summarize documents, create emails, and automate some marketing materials and contracts. Where it gets more interesting for Equinox, which operates more than 100 fitness clubs, is a pilot of a generative AI-enabled feature that offers workout recommendations and nutrition tips.

This tools is built in Equinox’s branded mobile app but only available for employees. The rollout began with the tech team, then corporate employees and instructors, before it could become widely available to all Equinox gym goers if all goes well. This reflects Veluri’s technology playbook: always test internally first. 

“Our personal training coaches are probably going to be the most rigorous in terms of the feedback,” says Veluri. 

He asserts that the insights from Equinox’s rigorous training data are what sets it apart from the more generalized recommendations that may be produced from standard AI models. “The value is added when we have our proprietary thinking that is embedded with the general recommendation, so that the end user should feel that this is something that I’m getting that is on par with what an Equinox coach would provide,” says Veluri.

There’s also a more valuable feedback loop with the application of generative AI, as Equinox is now able to utilize large language models that can digest written comments from users and then adjust future fitness and nutrition suggestions. Prior variations of these tools would rely on a more simplistic “thumbs up, thumbs down” response.

“That ability for our members to have agency over the recommendations, and for us to be able to incorporate that feedback into modifying the recommendations, is something that would not have been possible if we did not have gen AI,” says Veluri. 

Veluri has had a long career at Equinox, joining the fitness company in 2010 as director of digital products and rising up through the ranks to become CTO in 2021. Through that time, Equinox has invested in a mobile app that offers users virtual classes, and invested in more technically advanced treadmills, ellipticals, and other workout machinery.

Over that period of time, the fitness industry has democratized the accessibility of workout data, with fitness trackers like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Garmin enjoying mass adoption and easily tracking steps taken throughout the day, calories burned, sleep, and heart rate. Studies on these devices are fairly limited, but research does indicate that the use of fitness trackers can promote more fitness.

AI could make promoting a healthier lifestyle even easier. One way that Equinox utilizes AI, which predates the generative boom, involves Netflix-styled recommendations for classes that a fitness freak may want to try based on their past preference for yoga or cycling, the weather of the day, and the club locations they tend to frequent. Veluri says after this feature went live, Equinox saw class bookings dramatically increase. That engagement can lead to less club member attrition.

The company has also rolled out a generative AI chatbot that can answer straightforward questions including “What time is my gym open?”

“Our business model is one where we want and encourage our members to use our clubs as often as they can,” says Veluri.

With a scrappy technology team of just around 80 people, Veluri says he has to be careful about spending and doesn’t put too much money into any one tech initiative.

Equinox also has a close relationship with Amazon Web Services, a partner it leaned on to rearchitect its tech stack and streamline workflows for engineers. Previously, Equinox ran workloads on a Windows-based server and each digital fitness service ran as an individual task. That added complexity to the software updates process. While the application infrastructure is now housed more efficiently with AWS, Equinox says it utilizes large language models from various providers, including AWS and Anthropic.

Veluri says the culture he’s created with his technology team is one that encourages everyone to offer suggestions for what mobile app features should be explored next. The team takes a close look at competitor gym and fitness apps to ensure the features Equinox offers are in good shape.

“The biggest advantage of Equinox is that we use the services of our company a lot,” says Veluri. “We also have goals and we also want to achieve results.”

John Kell

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NEWS PACKETS

Big Tech’s 2025 AI Spending Total: $344 billion. Bloomberg took a look at the latest quarterly spending plans from four of the world’s largest technology companies—Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet—and found that their capital expenditures reached $89 billion in the second quarter. A lot of those funds are going toward building out data centers that are needed to run AI models, which can give these tech giants an edge that Wall Street is rewarding or punishing based on what they are gleaning from the earnings results. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, as an example, reported a second-quarter sales total that exceeded expectations and issued a positive revenue forecast, growth that CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributed to “AI unlocking greater efficiency and gains across our ad system.” Amazon, meanwhile, saw shares fall partly due to retail volatility but also the competitive dynamics in cloud and AI that led to some concerns about the company’s market position.

AI blamed for thousands of job cuts so far this year. Under the hood of a U.S. job market that’s looking increasingly shaky after a weak report for July and downward revisions for the prior two months is a report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas that found the adoption of generative AI technology by private employers accounted for more than 10,000 job cuts for the first seven months in 2025. As prior reporting has shown, the impact of AI on hiring has most notably affected younger workers. CBS News reports that job listings for entry-level corporate roles have declined 15% over the past year, citing data from career platform Handshake. “The industry is being reshaped by the advancement of artificial intelligence and ongoing uncertainty surrounding work visas, which have contributed to workforce reductions,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. Meanwhile, IT trade group CompTIA reports that postings for tech positions contracted slightly in July from the prior month.

Apple is feeling the pressure in the AI race. After the tech behemoth reported a robust fiscal third-quarter earnings report, driven by strong demand for iPhones, Bloomberg says CEO Tim Cook held a rare all-hands meeting intended to rally the troops around the company’s AI prospects and pipeline of features even as questions continue to linger about Apple’s AI struggles. “We’ve rarely been first,” Cook reportedly told Apple’s team. “There was a PC before the Mac; there was a smartphone before the iPhone; there were many tablets before the iPad; there was an MP3 player before iPod.” Separately, the outlet reports of the early stages of a new team called “Answers, Knowledge and Information,” which may be working on creating a new ChatGPT-like search engine. Rivals have taken notice, with Google recently poking fun of Apple’s delayed AI features in an advertisement for the Pixel 10 smartphone.

OpenAI, Amazon, and Google among companies that signed EU’s AI code of practice. The European Commission’s AI office published a list of signatories that have committed to the EU’s AI code of practice, a set of rules as it pertains to transparency, copyright, safety, and security for companies that deploy general-purpose AI models. U.S. tech giants including Google, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and OpenAI have signed the code of practice, as well as Europe’s Mistral AI and Aleph Alpha. Meta was a notable hold out, as was Elon Musk’s xAI, which only signed onto one of the three chapters of the code. Those that haven’t signed the code of practice will still need to adhere to the requirements in the EU’s AI Act, which was adopted by the European Parliament last year, though most of the substantive requirements will be applicable by 2026. 

ADOPTION CURVE

IT leaders say they are losing 8.6% of business revenue on inability to tap AI. A survey of 800 global IT decision-makers from businesses with over 1,000 employees reported that they believe the inability to make use of AI in a timely manner would them to lose, on average, 8.6% of their revenue. For the sample of the study, conducted by database software provider Couchbase, that would equate to an annual loss of almost $87 million.

Businesses say that the top issues disrupting their AI projects include a perception that the risk of failure was or had become too high (45% of respondents), followed by an inability to secure the necessary budget or stay within budget (39%) and a lack of confidence that the project would meet security or compliance demands (36%).

Julie Irish, chief information officer at Couchbase, told Fortune that her approach to keep costs in check on AI investments centered on piloting every single solution pitched by vendors. Irish says by doing so, she can keep a close eye on how long it takes to implement new AI tools, better predict costs for a broader rollout, and determine if the technology meets the use case.

“I think there’s a lot of overpromising,” says Irish. “If it’s really as easy as they say, and it’s really going to add that much value, ‘Hey, let’s try it out. Let’s see how it’s working.’”

Courtesy of Couchbase

JOBS RADAR

Hiring:

– Ronald McDonald House Charities is seeking a CIO, based in Chicago. Posted salary range: $222K-$289K/year.

– EchoStar is seeking a CIO, based in Englewood, Colorado. Posted salary range: $400K-$500K/year.

– Air Force Research Laboratory is seeking a CTO, based in Dayton, Ohio. Posted salary range: $125.2K-$197.5K/year.

– Royal Electric is seeking a CIO, based in Long Beach, California. Posted salary range: $220K-$295K/year.

Hired:

– Amway appointed Ryan Talbott as CTO, succeeding Becky Smith, the direct selling company’s chief financial officer, who had served as interim CTO for the past several months. Prior to joining Amway, Talbott was VP and global CIO for automotive parts supplier BorgWarner. He has also held executive roles at auto maker Stellantis and management consulting firm Accenture.

– Certara announced the appointment of Christopher Bouton as CTO, where he will oversee the technology strategy for the drug development software maker. Bouton previously was the founder and CEO of life sciences software company Vyasa Analytics, which Certara acquired in 2022. He also previously found and led software provider Entagen, which was acquired by Thomson Reuters.

– Highmark Health named Dr. Alistair Erskine as chief information digital officer, joining the Pittsburgh-based health care company after most recently serving as CIDO at Georgia health care system Emory Healthcare. He also previously served as chief digital health officer at not-for-profit health care system Mass General Brigham and CIO at Pennsylvania regional health care provider Geisinger.

– Advarra appointed Brian Hart as CTO, joining the clinical research services provider after most recently serving as CTO at clinical analytics company Covera Health. Earlier in his career, he served as a director of clinical data and innovation at IBM Watson Health and VP of research and development for Merge Healthcare, a medical imaging company acquired by IBM in 2015.

– CSAA Insurance Group named Bradley Lontz as EVP and CIO, joining the insurance provider after most recently serving as CIO at CopperPoint Insurance. Prior to that, he also held CIO roles at California Dental Association and Nautilus Insurance. Earlier in Lontz’s career, he held senior leadership positions at Liberty Mutual, Cummins, and PwC.

– CloudFactory announced the appointment of Ajai Sharma as chief product and technology officer, responsible for product strategy and technology vision for the company that labels data used for training AI models. Sharma previously served as a head of product at Amazon Web Services and before that, an AI and deep learning product expert for consultancy McKinsey.

– Inmar Intelligence promoted Srini Varadarajan to the role of CTO, after he most recently served as SVP of software engineering for the data insights company. Earlier in Varadarajan’s career, he consulted and led engineering teams at organizations including Volvo, Avis, and JPMorgan Chase.



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Senate Dems’ plan to fix Obamacare premiums adds nearly $300 billion to deficit, CRFB says

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7 hours ago

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December 5, 2025

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a nonpartisan watchdog that regularly estimates how much the U.S. Congress is adding to the $38 trillion national debt.

With enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies due to expire within days, some Senate Democrats are scrambling to protect millions of Americans from getting the unpleasant holiday gift of spiking health insurance premiums. The CRFB says there’s just one problem with the plan: It’s not funded.

“With the national debt as large as the economy and interest payments costing $1 trillion annually, it is absurd to suggest adding hundreds of billions more to the debt,” CRFB President Maya MacGuineas wrote in a statement on Friday afternoon.

The proposal, backed by members of the Senate Democratic caucus, would fully extend the enhanced ACA subsidies for three years, from 2026 through 2028, with no additional income limits on who can qualify. Those subsidies, originally boosted during the pandemic and later renewed, were designed to lower premiums and prevent coverage losses for middle‑ and lower‑income households purchasing insurance on the ACA exchanges.

CRFB estimated that even this three‑year extension alone would add roughly $300 billion to federal deficits over the next decade, largely because the federal government would continue to shoulder a larger share of premium costs while enrollment and subsidy amounts remain elevated. If Congress ultimately moves to make the enhanced subsidies permanent—as many advocates have urged—the total cost could swell to nearly $550 billion in additional borrowing over the next decade.

Reversing recent guardrails

MacGuineas called the Senate bill “far worse than even a debt-financed extension” as it would roll back several “program integrity” measures that were enacted as part of a 2025 reconciliation law and were intended to tighten oversight of ACA subsidies. On top of that, it would be funded by borrowing even more. “This is a bad idea made worse,” MacGuineas added.

The watchdog group’s central critique is that the new Senate plan does not attempt to offset its costs through spending cuts or new revenue and, in their view, goes beyond a simple extension by expanding the underlying subsidy structure.

The legislation would permanently repeal restrictions that eliminated subsidies for certain groups enrolling during special enrollment periods and would scrap rules requiring full repayment of excess advance subsidies and stricter verification of eligibility and tax reconciliation. The bill would also nullify portions of a 2025 federal regulation that loosened limits on the actuarial value of exchange plans and altered how subsidies are calculated, effectively reshaping how generous plans can be and how federal support is determined. CRFB warned these reversals would increase costs further while weakening safeguards designed to reduce misuse and error in the subsidy system.

MacGuineas said that any subsidy extension should be paired with broader reforms to curb health spending and reduce overall borrowing. In her view, lawmakers are missing a chance to redesign ACA support in a way that lowers premiums while also improving the long‑term budget outlook.

The debate over ACA subsidies recently contributed to a government funding standoff, and CRFB argued that the new Senate bill reflects a political compromise that prioritizes short‑term relief over long‑term fiscal responsibility.

“After a pointless government shutdown over this issue, it is beyond disappointing that this is the preferred solution to such an important issue,” MacGuineas wrote.

The off-year elections cast the government shutdown and cost-of-living arguments in a different light. Democrats made stunning gains and almost flipped a deep-red district in Tennessee as politicians from the far left and center coalesced around “affordability.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly smelling blood in the water and doubling down on the theme heading into the pivotal midterm elections of 2026. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania soon to discuss pocketbook anxieties. But he is repeating predecessor Joe Biden’s habit of dismissing inflation, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.

“We fixed inflation, and we fixed almost everything,” Trump said in a Tuesday cabinet meeting, in which he also dismissed affordability as a “hoax” pushed by Democrats.​

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now face a politically fraught choice: allow premiums to jump sharply—including in swing states like Pennsylvania where ACA enrollees face double‑digit increases—or pass an expensive subsidy extension that would, as CRFB calculates, explode the deficit without addressing underlying health care costs.



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Netflix–Warner Bros. deal sets up $72 billion antitrust test

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8 hours ago

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December 5, 2025

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Netflix Inc. has won the heated takeover battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Now it must convince global antitrust regulators that the deal won’t give it an illegal advantage in the streaming market. 

The $72 billion tie-up joins the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie studios. It would reshape the market for online video content by combining the No. 1 streaming player with the No. 4 service HBO Max and its blockbuster hits such as Game Of Thrones, Friends, and the DC Universe comics characters franchise.  

That could raise red flags for global antitrust regulators over concerns that Netflix would have too much control over the streaming market. The company faces a lengthy Justice Department review and a possible US lawsuit seeking to block the deal if it doesn’t adopt some remedies to get it cleared, analysts said.

“Netflix will have an uphill climb unless it agrees to divest HBO Max as well as additional behavioral commitments — particularly on licensing content,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Rie. “The streaming overlap is significant,” she added, saying the argument that “the market should be viewed more broadly is a tough one to win.”

By choosing Netflix, Warner Bros. has jilted another bidder, Paramount Skydance Corp., a move that risks touching off a political battle in Washington. Paramount is backed by the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison, and his son, David Ellison, and the company has touted their longstanding close ties to President Donald Trump. Their acquisition of Paramount, which closed in August, has won public praise from Trump. 

Comcast Corp. also made a bid for Warner Bros., looking to merge it with its NBCUniversal division.

The Justice Department’s antitrust division, which would review the transaction in the US, could argue that the deal is illegal on its face because the combined market share would put Netflix well over a 30% threshold.

The White House, the Justice Department and Comcast didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

US lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren have already faulted the transaction — which would create a global streaming giant with 450 million users — as harmful to consumers.

“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare,” Warren said after the Netflix announcement. Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that a Warner Bros.-Netflix tie-up would raise more serious competition questions “than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade.”

European Union regulators are also likely to subject the Netflix proposal to an intensive review amid pressure from legislators. In the UK, the deal has already drawn scrutiny before the announcement, with House of Lords member Baroness Luciana Berger pressing the government on how the transaction would impact competition and consumer prices.

The combined company could raise prices and broadly impact “culture, film, cinemas and theater releases,”said Andreas Schwab, a leading member of the European Parliament on competition issues, after the announcement.

Paramount has sought to frame the Netflix deal as a non-starter. “The simple truth is that a deal with Netflix as the buyer likely will never close, due to antitrust and regulatory challenges in the United States and in most jurisdictions abroad,” Paramount’s antitrust lawyers wrote to their counterparts at Warner Bros. on Dec. 1.

Appealing directly to Trump could help Netflix avoid intense antitrust scrutiny, New Street Research’s Blair Levin wrote in a note on Friday. Levin said it’s possible that Trump could come to see the benefit of switching from a pro-Paramount position to a pro-Netflix position. “And if he does so, we believe the DOJ will follow suit,” Levin wrote.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos had dinner with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last December, a move other CEOs made after the election in order to win over the administration. In a call with investors Friday morning, Sarandos said that he’s “highly confident in the regulatory process,” contending the deal favors consumers, workers and innovation. 

“Our plans here are to work really closely with all the appropriate governments and regulators, but really confident that we’re going to get all the necessary approvals that we need,” he said.

Netflix will likely argue to regulators that other video services such as Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok should be included in any analysis of the market, which would dramatically shrink the company’s perceived dominance.

The US Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the transfer of broadcast-TV licenses, isn’t expected to play a role in the deal, as neither hold such licenses. Warner Bros. plans to spin off its cable TV division, which includes channels such as CNN, TBS and TNT, before the sale.

Even if antitrust reviews just focus on streaming, Netflix believes it will ultimately prevail, pointing to Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime and Walt Disney Co. as other major competitors, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. 

Netflix is expected to argue that more than 75% of HBO Max subscribers already subscribe to Netflix, making them complementary offerings rather than competitors, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. The company is expected to make the case that reducing its content costs through owning Warner Bros., eliminating redundant back-end technology and bundling Netflix with Max will yield lower prices.



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The rise of AI reasoning models comes with a big energy tradeoff

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9 hours ago

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December 5, 2025

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Nearly all leading artificial intelligence developers are focused on building AI models that mimic the way humans reason, but new research shows these cutting-edge systems can be far more energy intensive, adding to concerns about AI’s strain on power grids.

AI reasoning models used 30 times more power on average to respond to 1,000 written prompts than alternatives without this reasoning capability or which had it disabled, according to a study released Thursday. The work was carried out by the AI Energy Score project, led by Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni and Salesforce Inc. head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov.

The researchers evaluated 40 open, freely available AI models, including software from OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. Some models were found to have a much wider disparity in energy consumption, including one from Chinese upstart DeepSeek. A slimmed-down version of DeepSeek’s R1 model used just 50 watt hours to respond to the prompts when reasoning was turned off, or about as much power as is needed to run a 50 watt lightbulb for an hour. With the reasoning feature enabled, the same model required 7,626 watt hours to complete the tasks.

The soaring energy needs of AI have increasingly come under scrutiny. As tech companies race to build more and bigger data centers to support AI, industry watchers have raised concerns about straining power grids and raising energy costs for consumers. A Bloomberg investigation in September found that wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% over the past five years in areas near data centers. There are also environmental drawbacks, as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.com Inc. have previously acknowledged the data center buildout could complicate their long-term climate objectives. 

More than a year ago, OpenAI released its first reasoning model, called o1. Where its prior software replied almost instantly to queries, o1 spent more time computing an answer before responding. Many other AI companies have since released similar systems, with the goal of solving more complex multistep problems for fields like science, math and coding.

Though reasoning systems have quickly become the industry norm for carrying out more complicated tasks, there has been little research into their energy demands. Much of the increase in power consumption is due to reasoning models generating much more text when responding, the researchers said. 

The new report aims to better understand how AI energy needs are evolving, Luccioni said. She also hopes it helps people better understand that there are different types of AI models suited to different actions. Not every query requires tapping the most computationally intensive AI reasoning systems.

“We should be smarter about the way that we use AI,” Luccioni said. “Choosing the right model for the right task is important.”

To test the difference in power use, the researchers ran all the models on the same computer hardware. They used the same prompts for each, ranging from simple questions — such as asking which team won the Super Bowl in a particular year — to more complex math problems. They also used a software tool called CodeCarbon to track how much energy was being consumed in real time.

The results varied considerably. The researchers found one of Microsoft’s Phi 4 reasoning models used 9,462 watt hours with reasoning turned on, compared with about 18 watt hours with it off. OpenAI’s largest gpt-oss model, meanwhile, had a less stark difference. It used 8,504 watt hours with reasoning on the most computationally intensive “high” setting and 5,313 watt hours with the setting turned down to “low.” 

OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google released internal research in August that estimated the median text prompt for its Gemini AI service used 0.24 watt-hours of energy, roughly equal to watching TV for less than nine seconds. Google said that figure was “substantially lower than many public estimates.” 

Much of the discussion about AI power consumption has focused on large-scale facilities set up to train artificial intelligence systems. Increasingly, however, tech firms are shifting more resources to inference, or the process of running AI systems after they’ve been trained. The push toward reasoning models is a big piece of that as these systems are more reliant on inference.

Recently, some tech leaders have acknowledged that AI’s power draw needs to be reckoned with. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the industry must earn the “social permission to consume energy” for AI data centers in a November interview. To do that, he argued tech must use AI to do good and foster broad economic growth.



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