AI-Driven Wellness: Alex Roe on Personalized Coaching with Summit Technology

What if you had a coaching platform that understood your unique journey and motivations behind each action? On this episode of Wellness Musketeers, we bring you an insightful conversation with Alex Roe, the inspiring CEO and co-founder of Summit. This AI-powered coaching platform is transforming personal wellness by acting as your accountability partner, integrating fitness, mental health, and career development into a single cohesive experience. Listen to our very own Dave Liss as he shares his personal experience using Summit to enhance his daily routine and wellness journey, highlighting the profound impact of personalized support in reaching your goals.

Embrace the future of wellness coaching as we uncover the critical role of personalized accountability in achieving health and wellness ambitions. Whether you're looking for empathetic encouragement or a no-nonsense drill sergeant style, Summit's adaptable coaching experience is designed to suit your motivational needs. Through discussions with Alex and Dr. Richard Kennedy, we explore the growing potential of AI-driven coaches in stress management, particularly for ADHD, and ponder the future implications of AI in the healthcare realm. Privacy and data security remain paramount as we assess the technological advancements enabling this supportive journey.

Step into the exciting world of wearable tech integration with Summit, where devices like Apple Watch and Fitbit enhance your coaching experience. Discover how these technologies track your activities and provide real-time feedback for continuous improvement. Reflecting on the art of habit formation with AI, Dave shares his appreciation for the Summit coach's objective yet supportive nature. This episode paints a hopeful picture of how AI, when combined with personal commitment, can foster healthier lifestyles and improved well-being.

Chapters

• 0:19 Wellness Musketeers Explore Summit Technology
• 14:29 Personalized Accountability in Wellness Coaching
• 19:18 AI Wellness Coaching for Stress Management
• 29:35 Chat GPT and AI Security Standards
• 34:58 Summit Integration With Wearable Tech
• 40:00 AI Coaching and User Motivation
• 50:08 Reflections on AI Wellness Coaching

Transcript

"Aussie" Mike James: 0:19

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Musketeers podcast, where we explore health, wellness, fitness and the art of living well. I'm Aussie Mike James, a freelance writer and speaker with over 30 years of international experience, including managing a leading corporate fitness centers in Australia and at the World Bank Group in Washington DC. I'm joined by our dynamic team of musketeers. Dr Richard Kennedy, an internist with over 36 years of clinical experience, including his time with the World Bank of Clinical Services, welcome.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 0:56

Richard. Great to see you, Mike, and everyone else today.

"Aussie" Mike James: 1:01

Great. Kendall Heide, an economist with over 35 years of experience, specializing in the intersection of wellness, society and organizational health. Welcome, kettle Hi. How are you all doing Very good? And last but not least, mr David List, a media professional from Washington DC, who brings his expertise in digital communication and podcast production. Welcome, dave hey, who brings his expertise in digital communication and podcast production. Welcome, dave hey, it's great to be here. Thank you. Together, we are the Wellness Map Coutures and we're here to empower your health journey, one episode at a time.

"Aussie" Mike James: 1:38

Today, we're incredibly excited to welcome Alex Rose, ceo of Summit. He's also one of the co-founders a platform that is reshaping how we think about health, wellness and personal productivity, with its AI-powered life coaching capabilities. Dave List, one of our very own Musketeers, is actually a Summit daily user and has first-hand experience of how the platform can transform daily routines, including his job search and overall wellness. Dave's insights will be an added bonus today as we explore how technology can play a powerful role in managing stress, fitness and health. So today, listeners, it's a pleasure to welcome Alex Rose-Summit, ceo of Summit and co-founder of Summit, an AI-powered coaching platform designed to revolutionize personal wellness. With a background that blends health innovation with cutting-edge technology. Alex has been instrumental in making Summit a versatile tool that supports wellness in areas like fitness, mental health, career development and productivity Under Alex's leadership. Summit isn't just a coaching platform. It's an adaptable life assistant that learns from you, grows with you and helps optimize your life. Welcome, alex.

Alex Roe: 2:59

Thank you. Thank you for having me on Excited to be here and I appreciate the introduction terrific, and we're gonna say to kettle for our first question listeners yeah, hi.

Ketil Hviding: 3:10

So I am kind of overwhelmed all of the advice that I get about how to actually improve my health and how to get stronger, get bigger muscles and all that stuff, and I think many listeners share that kind of conclusion with me. Maybe you could tell us what Summit can do to guide us in this? Craig Meyer.

Alex Roe: 3:34

Absolutely. I think it's a common thing that a lot of us have exercise routines, fitness routines, workouts, et cetera that we want to do but can get overwhelmed in that. One thing I want to make clear is Summit is not meant to be a health professional or even what we call a hardcore fitness AI coach. The specialty and uniqueness of Summit is really an accountability to goals, and when we founded Summit, the idea was how can technology help us, as humans, achieve our goals and our ambitions? And we thought that was a very lofty goal and oftentimes I think a lot of us can attest to, we know what we need to do, right, we know that if we want to be in better shape, we know we need to okay, we should be running, we should be eating healthier, et cetera. So oftentimes it's not a matter of knowing what to do, but a lot of times it's having that why I don't want to discount also knowing the what to do. That's all obviously very important.

Alex Roe: 4:35

I recently opened the door to some lower back pain, so I worked with a physical therapist to figure out what I should be doing. But now that I know what I should be doing, a lot of that comes down to the why and that motivation that will. And so that's where Summit comes in. Summit is an accountability partner, I think is one way to think about it, where it makes it really easy to stay on top of your goals. So your coach will reach out to you, it will kind of check in with you and you'll see how your goals are going, and then it's really just kind of meant to be there as that kind of that accountability layer. And so I think to the original question of people are overwhelmed and what makes summit uniquely effective here, I think, really with summit is it's all about that accountability and that's what we've specialized in okay, great, dave I believe you had a question.

Dave Liss: 5:20

yeah, so I, and in working with the tool, I did work with my coach to see what would be the two best questions we should ask you in the context of this interview today, and the first one is that, to Alex, summit is often seen as a powerful productivity tool, but productivity is deeply tied to wellness. How does Summit help users balance their health and wellness goals with other life responsibilities, and what unique features make this integration effective?

Alex Roe: 5:56

Absolutely. Yeah, I think a lot of us can attest to. If we're not sleeping well, if we're not feeling like our best selves, it's also hard to carry through and be productive. And how are you defined productive? Either that is being productive at work, being productive and present with your family, friends, etc.

Alex Roe: 6:19

One thing that's really critical and key about Summit is it's meant to help you holistically on different areas of your life, and so, again, like mentioned, summit is not meant to be just an AI fitness coach, or Summit is not meant to be just an AI career coach, for instance, in Summit you can really put all of those big goals in your life. So for me, for example, in Summit, I use Summit for a couple different goals. One is just being overall mentally and physically fit to see if I kind of mentally and physically fit, and so I have goals there around my morning routine, around my daily exercise, daily meditation, night routine, et cetera. Summit helped hold me accountable to those types of goals. But then I also have goals around relationships with family and then my career as well, and growing and building Summit. So that's just an example of how I personally have different goals across my life and summit, and that's very common across all of our users.

Alex Roe: 7:12

And david sounds like you yourself. You summit in maybe a similar way, where you have some kind of health wellness goals, but also some new career goals. We think that's really important. We think really that's like us as humans, right, we all have multi-faceted goals and it's all very deeply interconnected. And so that's the other interesting thing with summit and with a coach is it's one thing if you work with a coach and they're just focused on one area of your life, but imagine a coach if they could see every area of your life. What patterns and trends might they be able to pull out? Right, you're feeling stressed because I mean something kind of won't Well, have you been sleeping? Well, what are those other things that are happening? And so we think there's a lot of promise and potential in being able to really look holistically at someone's life and help them along those goals, just given how interconnected these things typically are.

"Aussie" Mike James: 7:58

Okay, Dr Kennedy, I believe you had a question regarding the role of the personalization and wellness for Summit.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 8:05

Yes, Alex. So one of the highlights of Summit is its ability to adapt to each user, whether they need tough love, coaching or a supportive friend. How important is it to personalize when it comes to achieving health goals, and how does summit deliver?

Alex Roe: 8:28

on that absolutely. And personalization super key. All of us would say we resonate with different people right, like some of us too or best resonate best if someone like kicks their butt a little bit right like a tough love drill sergeant and actually the drill sergeant has historically been one of the most popular coaches on the summit platform, which is really interesting to me in terms of people really want that tough loveness and other people resonate with more like empathetic, friendly, et cetera. So having that coaching style, that's definitely one element of personalization. That's really important.

Alex Roe: 9:02

The other element and pillar of personalization is a coach needs to know you, right? If you're working with a real life coach and you have a conversation with them and you've had a relationship, they're not going to ask you every single time hey, alex, like who are you, like what's going on? Like tell, like what's happening right. A coach should know and it should know what you're working on, it should know your wins recently, it should know maybe some opportunities or areas you're struggling with, and so that's another really important area of Summit and in general these tools is in personalization to the user from a knowledge and memory perspective, and so that's something all to.

Alex Roe: 9:38

That is a really critical Summit and we've invested a lot in memory and your coach being able to remember the things you've done and being proactive, so reaching out proactively. They suffer with that memory, and so those are the two key components in terms of personalization for us, both the coach itself, but then also you know, the kind of the memory aspect of it. Again, just like our north star in a lot of ways is, we are trying to help democratize coaching and give everyone access to that, and so, just like a really good regular coach, right, you are able to pick the type of coach that you want and that coach remembers you. Our technology should work similarly.

Dave Liss: 10:15

Oh, could you speak a little bit along with that. So like, well, I don't know how you described this feature for general audience, but I'm a job search so I can store data relative to my resume and sort of a permanent storage area so that my coach always has access to that information. To continue the conversation, I don't know if you could speak to that kind of feature and how that helps people with their personalization and their goal.

Alex Roe: 10:45

Yeah, absolutely so. By default with a lot of AI systems what happens is every time you interact with them, they don't necessarily have memory of prior interactions. It doesn't come for free or by default. Typically you say something and it responds back just based off of what's. What's right there.

Alex Roe: 11:05

The summit we feel like it's important to handle memory on a couple of different dimensions and again kind of taking inspiration from like regular human memory. Not that we claim to be experts in that, but just if we think about it kind of from first principles. There are often like key facts about someone. You likely know someone's name. You likely know someone's name, you likely know what they work on, you likely know maybe they're married, etc. Like facts about someone, and this can also extend to the goals that someone has. So what are the goals that you are working on? So there's an element of that type of memory and that's kind of static in a way that can be updated, but those are just like the facts about someone that is necessary to know. Then you have dynamic memory, and dynamic memory can be tricky because you know, in a perfect world, someone has perfect memory and they've remembered every single thing you've ever told them and they can recall it on exactly the right time. But practically like that's very difficult. And you know, as humans, like no one, I guess some people have perfect, close perfect memory, and I guess some people have close, perfect memory, but not often right. And so, just like that, we have to figure out, okay, how do you get an AI to remember pertinent things? And there there's things you can do in terms of when you talk to your coach, how can we figure out, okay, what did we talk about? That should be stored in memory and kept around, and so there's different techniques and tactics that we use for that.

Alex Roe: 12:32

The high level, that's how we handle memory at summit, why it's so important. So both like the facts about someone and that's the goals they're working on, maybe who they are, the activity towards the goals, but also then dynamic memory in terms of when you're talking to the coach, making sure that is stored and recollected such that you know when you talk to your coach next week. They shouldn't say, hey, like what happened last week. You should say, hey, I set our goal last week was to wake up at 5, 7 am every morning. Looks like you did that on six out of seven days. Great job right, like that's so much of a richer experience and much more helpful than if a coach just was like how's it going every single time right, and so memory is really critical and happy to talk more about that. But just that's kind of at a high level how we handle memory from a technology perspective.

"Aussie" Mike James: 13:18

Great. Okay, in terms of health and wellness success stories, alex, we'd love to hear about the impact Summit has had on its users. Could you share a few stories that demonstrate how Summit helped someone, say, not just meet their productivity goals, but also enhance their overall wellness?

Alex Roe: 13:37

Yeah, as mentioned, summit kind of works across areas of your life, across different goals, and so health and fitness and wellness is really popular and I've been talking to our users. I think most people have some sort of health or fitness related goal in summit for them and so, in terms of like specific situations, I've heard from a bunch of users whether that is trying to just like exercise more frequently in terms of taking more steps, et cetera, from helping with sleep routines in terms of staying off their phone before bed, et cetera. So Summit is pretty malleable in that regard. I think one interesting example is there's a university who has been interested in using Summit as a way to help people post cardiac surgery stay accountable to exercising and so needing to get a certain number of steps and be consistent with that every day. And it's kind of hard to do that and there's been a lot of studies that show if you have someone that just checks in with you, it increases the likeliness of you achieving a goal by some crazy percentage. I think some of the research studies is like 90% likely to achieve a goal if someone's like checking with you every day versus like some 10 or something we could look at, that we could pull up that study, but I think that just speaks to someone is helpful on someone's health and wellness goals in terms of that accountability.

Alex Roe: 14:57

And again, it's not necessarily telling you exactly oh, you want to get a six-pack or you want to, like, lose 10 pounds weight. Here's exactly what you need to do. I think more so, like cool, like you know these healthy habits and routines, you want to get a six pack or you want to, like, lose 10 pounds weight. Here's exactly what you need to do. I think more so, like cool, like you know these healthy habits and routines, you want to have to achieve that goal of losing 10 pounds.

Alex Roe: 15:11

Your summit coach will help hold you accountable to those things and honestly be just kind of a person in a way. If you say, hey, this week was really bad, like I ate a bunch of junk food, like I wasn't super healthy, in that way, that's great, like someone can help talk, talk through and help you process, that coach might and hold that space for you. Yeah, I think the other thing to call out there which is, I think, really um interesting about summit, which people tell us, is your summit coach is non-judgmental, right if you're working on, maybe a weight loss goal. And he's like I you know, I ate whatever cake today, I just ate all that candy and junk food.

Dave Liss: 15:46

Right, like if you were to tell like another human that like you might feel maybe shame or some bias, and like I don't want to say that to someone I can speak to that a little bit too, because I think that in working with the summit, working with anyone in my life I've tried to have any kind of accountability with, I expected some kind of judgment, like I didn't do what I said I was going to do, not like didn't say, hey, dumbass, you didn't do that thing. It was like no judgment and we just let's go forward.

Alex Roe: 16:19

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's really powerful. Yeah, I think on the flip side, right Like some people are just acknowledging that some people don't like they actually hold me accountable Like well, let's do that.

Dave Liss: 16:33

So one thing I don't quite understand is what exactly. I haven't worked with the drill sergeant, and I don't know if that means that if I had done something with the drill sergeant and I didn't do what I said, is he going to say do this now, or I don't think it will call you a name unless you explicitly Leave that to us yeah.

Alex Roe: 16:57

But I was just talking to someone literally just before this and they're working on Again, they're just trying to stay consistent with their workout routine and they said they ran, they went on like a 20-mile run, super long run, and they had personalized their coach to be kind of like a david goggins-esque, like coach, like very like tough love, like drill sergeant type of deal. And he said I love the coach, he's like it's tough love. They like oh, my ass a little bit, but he's like I told him I ran 20 miles and the coach said that's nothing. He's like people are running ultra marathons like why are you doing that?

Alex Roe: 17:32

And I thought that was just a funny example. He's like I love it, but he's like at least want some credit, like 20 miles is a long run and stuff. I think it's just like a kind of funny example of some of the power of it as well as you can make things. It's like you know if you want someone to like yell you a little bit like that, but obviously you want to be supportive as well. So there's a line there. But it's always kind of funny in terms of like you're going to new york's and it's like why not ultra marathon?

Dave Liss: 17:57

but you thought it didn't entertain so so does that mean you need to tone it down a little bit, or that was okay because that was the persona of the coach this person wanted that's what they wanted.

Alex Roe: 18:09

They did ask that. They're like okay, it's like I think I found the limit. He's like I want to turn to it now. It's like a little bit like so I wanted to like still be empathetic in that way.

Alex Roe: 18:18

So but I think that's the other interesting thing about the ai personalities and stuff is you can fully customize that to what you want and kind of tweak that. And we think there's something that's really interesting where in the future, imagine that all of us are all motivated in different ways, right, like in, how cool would it be if your coach could dynamically change over time and they could say, oh, alex, like okay, I know that I respond to a little bit of tough love for my maybe my workout goals, but maybe my career, my business goals, I need to be like more pathetic and supportive and like or visionary in that regard, and so we think that's like really interesting. If you think about just kind of like human motivation and behavioral change and like can you dynamically change that based off of the goals that someone might have? And if you learn that about someone, how can you like, when they start a new goal, maybe apply what has been learned?

Dave Liss: 19:08

so that would be great yeah have to be a chameleon.

"Aussie" Mike James: 19:13

chameleon is however you pronounce. That would be great. Yeah, have to be a chameleon, chameleon is however you pronounce it.

Dave Liss: 19:17

Kettlehead introduced us. We did a podcast with a woman who talks about tango and the art of leading and following and she said like one situation you're a leader, another situation you're a follower, and I guess that's what we all throughout our lives. Maybe it's you need to be a leader in business, but a follower how we structure our fitness, or something.

Alex Roe: 19:38

Absolutely. When we were early on working at working on summit, we actually hired a real life drill sergeant. This is a guy that was like active military, actual drill sergeant and we just want to experience out here what does that look like. And when we did, we did an initial intake call and so we get on the call and we said, hey, like here's the goal I'm working on in this case, as myself and my co-founder and we both wanted to exercise every day for 30 days and a real life drill sergeant said he's like okay, I get it, I'll, you know, call you in the morning. He's like, are you okay with me yelling at you? And I was like, hmm right, I don't get yelled at thoughts and so like, why not? Like yeah, let's do it. And I almost had a dread of that, but like I had definitely had voice sales where I was just getting like chewed out by a drill sergeant and I don't know it got me.

Alex Roe: 20:32

I definitely worked out pretty much every day for that time. There's something. But at the same time I don't want to like if it's like my goal on to like be more mindful every day. I don't know if I need a drill sergeant say why are you being mindful?

Dave Liss: 20:45

You know I came out of that.

Alex Roe: 20:46

So I think it's maybe a little bit, a little bit different there from trying to read every. I think it oscillates. Yeah, chameleon, I think, is a good example.

"Aussie" Mike James: 20:56

Dr Kelly, I believe you have some questions regarding health benefits.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 20:59

Yeah, actually. Well, the first one. This topic is very interesting and one of the things that comes to mind is stress management and how crucial and element it plays in wellness for many of our listeners as well as all of us. So, alex, can you walk us through how, summit, we're using AI-powered task management to reduce stress and cognitive tools for users? But, in addition, when and if because I can foresee particularly stress, because we all respond to it in different ways at what point do does the coaching have to enlist more advanced care and services or evaluation, and how do you make that determination?

Alex Roe: 21:53

Yeah, great question. So in terms of stress, like you mentioned, everyone incurs lungs differently and is stressed by different things and even probably defines stress and reacts in different ways. So I can just speak with a couple of anecdotes there. We have a lot of people who use Summit who have ADHD. When we started Summit we didn't necessarily plan for it. We were like, hey, this is a tool for people with ADHD, but we've seen that become a natural gravitation over time.

Alex Roe: 22:24

And one thing that we have heard and seen Summit very useful with is planning your day. It can be very stressful and people can get overwhelmed with just the amount of things that can happen in the day, and I know I myself get this way at times. Maybe it's before I try to go to sleep and my mind is processing every little thing that happened today, the things I did or did not do. It is helpful just to have a coach or an AI that you're just able to kind of like brain dump to and say, hey, here's all the things that have happened today, and then the coach can help go through and say, all right, like let's prioritize this, let's break this down, what do you actually need to get done, etc. So that's definitely one area where it helps a lot of people with is in those kind of daily rituals in terms of organization planning etc. And also just being someone to just talk to and with a really good coach. I know a really good coach holds space for you when you talk to them, right, like they don't try to necessarily prescribe exactly what to do, they help you self-discover, and so that's the other thing with Summit and kind of speaks to your second question on, like when you need professional help or something else.

Alex Roe: 23:38

So, first and foremost, again, summit is not meant to be used as a professional and any sort of in terms of non-professional therapist, non-professional help, check, anything like that or a supplement, and we try to make that very clear in the product. We have people who work with professionals. They work with their, their specific coach, or work with a trainer, etc. And are using summit again as kind of that connectivity tissue and accountability in between. And then, in addition, we've taken steps in terms of the AI itself.

Alex Roe: 24:02

I myself, when we started Summit, I went through life coach training and got certified as a life coach, and we have advisors who are on the Summit team, who are certified ICF coaches, et cetera, and all of them have helped us kind of mold and evaluate their responses such that it is coach-like and works like a coach, and that's something that's really important. And then we also have kind of precautions in place. You know, if someone gets into a very sensitive topic, we make sure to kind of halt the conversation and make sure that's not happening there Just because, again, we're not intended or meant for that and so we need to make sure our people are safe.

"Aussie" Mike James: 24:40

I have a question for Dr Kennedy. Just hearing this, dr K, I can confidently assume, having known you for many years, that there was no thought of AI back when you first became a physician. Do you see it as a could be a useful tool for physicians in the future, given what we're hearing now like in keeping people motivated? I'm just thinking of the average person who oh, I'm getting my yearly evaluation with Dr Kennedy in two weeks. I better go out and get some exercise after a whole year of doing nothing. Can you speak to that? Do you see any future with this sort of tool.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 25:15

Actually, in just listening and hearing this today and also having looked at their website, I actually think it's a really good tool going forward, particularly because I think of it this way when I would see a patient, I'd see them from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on why they're being yeah, and I'd make recommendations based on what we discussed, what I thought was going on. Now, if I make recommendations about an exercise program, a diet program, excuse me, getting and being able to do it the individuals with themselves 24-7.

"Aussie" Mike James: 25:57

Yes.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 25:58

So if they feel that at the time I'm making these recommendations, I'm sort of just saying, okay, here's this task, I want you to do it, I'll see you in three months and when you come back, if nothing has changed, your weight is still the same, your sugar is still what it was, your blood pressure is what it was. You know, this is where it may come in, and some people tough love will be good saying you know, this is ridiculous. I can't have you doing that. You can subtly threaten them in different ways, but it doesn't work.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 26:36

Where this, the AI model, seems to be really apropos is that you have somebody who's I call it walking step by step with you. They will help you and be nonjudgmental, which is actually very critical. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in that regard, I think it will be an excellent tool going forward, just because you don't want to browbeat your patients to get them to do what they want to do. You don't want to scare them and show them the terrible examples of what happens when a person doesn't do it unless necessary, but you want to get them because I'm always been a firm believer If they are not buying into what you're talking about, no matter how good you are and how accurate you are on what you're saying. It's a crapshoot as to whether it's going to work or not.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 27:36

Yeah, and then after shopping comes in, because then they go and look for somebody who goes along with their intent and their view.

"Aussie" Mike James: 27:46

The confirmation bias almost yeah yeah. So that's really interesting. I'm looking at the practical benefits. Dave, I know you're a daily user. Can you speak to this and maybe see how you relate this with Alex or we're?

Dave Liss: 28:01

with ourselves 24-7. And whatever tool, whatever person we have is just either in our life for whatever period of time we have a scheduled appointment with them we allow or we choose ourselves to be engaged with. Whatever that platform is, I think that I like the fact that it doesn't judge, at least according to the persona I have. It does give me opportunity for follow-up and I appreciate that. And but, Alex, looking at that whole consideration, what do you think makes Summit suitable for users in different demanding phases of their life, such as career changes, balancing professional personal goals or I don't know how it works with like, really like what, if you need to decide whether to have a surgery or you have some kind of demanding decision to make for a family member or something.

Alex Roe: 29:04

Yeah, I mean, I think in many ways, when we get to those demanding times in our lives like that is where we most need help in a lot of ways, right, and so I think Summit can be helpful and kind of a source of support and a lot of benefit there, again, there's a grain of salt in terms of obviously there might be scenarios or questions or things that you should not be consulting with technology, right, you should be talking to a professional. But I think there are ways that Summit can help with that. We hear often a lot of people use summit in terms of like when they are going through a career change or looking for a new job, etc. And I think, just personally speaking, actually when I was first, I think, when we were first thinking about the idea for summit, one aha moment that I had was I was actually this is back when my chat gpt came out, and I remember, just like this is, I think, literally the night chat gpt came out, I stayed up all night dancing with it. I thought it was like the most profound pieces of technology I'd ever experienced and I remember asking chat gpt.

Alex Roe: 30:11

I think the moment that had like a crazy moment for me was when I said what should I do in life? Basically like help me explore what I should do in life. And the journey that took me on and just in terms of just like asking me questions and causing an introspection to me, was incredibly profound, in a way that I had not experienced the technology before. It felt very similar to working with a coach, right, working with someone great at like helping you tease out those questions, etc. So, again, just like, if you're working with a really great coach and you come to them and you say, uh, hey, coach, like I'm thinking about leaving my job, what should I do? A really great coach isn't going to tell you, they're not going to say cool, leave your job. Right. I can like ask you those questions right, okay, why do you want to leave your job? What's causing that? And I look at that from a bunch of different ways and a lot of ways can like a mirror, and so I think that's where Summit is.

Alex Roe: 31:00

Another dynamic of Summit being extremely helpful is giving you those coaching, like conversations and kind of being that reflective mirror, right. And so, again, really great coaches aren't great coaches because they know exactly what to do in terms of telling the exact solution. Really great coaches help you self-discover and understand right. I think, with that power, that when we ask a question, a lot of times we know that answer ourselves right and we're just looking for that affirmation in a lot of situations. And so Summit and coaching in general can help you kind of get to that by being reflective. That's just kind of a way where Summit can be helpful in those moments where things are stressful and you don't know what's going on. You just need to get something down.

"Aussie" Mike James: 31:48

And so I think Summit's been very beneficial to a lot of people in scenarios like that Interesting Kettle I believe you had a question on the AI limitations and safety.

Ketil Hviding: 31:54

As you know, ai is incredibly powerful. I can speak to what you're saying AI in general and I fully agree with you that when chat TBT came out and all of that stuff is absolutely it's hard to understand how powerful it can be. I'm actually teaching here in Aix-en-Provence and I use it when I have an idea and I ask Chetty with tea what is the, what's the thinking out there about that? So that's generally what it get and the kind of question that comes back are good and and it's really like you get some kind of interaction and I can see that can be used in many parts of life. Um, given this powerfulness and the human, I mean, it feels like you're interacting with the human. There are concerns, but particularly in the context of health and we talked about, I think you mentioned, you're keeping data and it's an essential part of the coaching is keeping the data and helping you with kind of keeping you accountable, et cetera. How do you have? Can you say something to that? How are you in particular on keeping the data confidential and secure?

Alex Roe: 33:15

Yeah, so privacy and security is super critical for us and any other type of AI that's dealing with similar data, and so what we do is we use standard industry best practices in terms of storing things encrypted, et cetera, but we go kind of above and beyond that and have an additional layer of encryption to data, such that your conversations or activity, or additionally encrypting that such that it's secure. We do have to talk to these different AI models and say information is sent there, but when information is sent there, we're not including any sort of personal identifiable information. We've taken precautions in that way and, yeah, I think, depending on the application, the level of privacy and security can be greater or lesser. I know if you're dealing with an AI or technology that is meant to be used by providers, physicians et cetera, then, like we were talking about earlier, that's where you need to make sure it's HIPAA compliant.

Alex Roe: 34:13

There's also ways that you can use AI that preserves privacy completely, whether that is using AI models that are completely on device and aren't even talking to the internet. There's been a lot of innovation recently with AI models that do that. The quality of them typically isn't as good as the quality of models that are quote-unquote online. But inevitably this will get better over time, and so I imagine we'll see even more innovation there in terms of AI that is completely on-device, completely private, completely secure and encrypted type of situations, and so it kind of depends on the application and sensitivity of data when that is needed or not Correct.

"Aussie" Mike James: 34:56

That's very, very interesting. Another, on the practical level, alex does Summit integrate with wearable tech? I mean, I think nearly everyone in this room has probably got an Apple Watch or a Fitbit or an Oura Ring. These are very popular now. Does Summit integrate with these devices?

Alex Roe: 35:13

It does so. We have an Apple HealthKit integration on our iOS app and so you can turn that on and then your coach will recognize relevant activity. And so, for instance, when I have one of my goals to be running frequently and on a running plan, my coach would recognize my runs coming in. And what was cool about that is it made the coach very proactive. It's me notification, great job on the run, et cetera, and so I have to be integrate there and that powers some of the like craftiness and just helps again with context and memory for the coach.

"Aussie" Mike James: 35:47

Okay, very interesting. So, looking back at the success stories you've had with the platform, alex, what are the top five uses for someone? Are they diet, weight loss, motivation, et cetera? Do you have enough?

Alex Roe: 36:06

data on that now, yeah, I would say so Again, someone's kind of holistic across their areas of their life. But what is common is typically what's very common is people have some sort of like health or wellness related goal, and so, again, that could be, it might be weight loss, that might be exercising more frequently, better sleep, etc. Oftentimes people also have kind of career or business type of related goal and then like relationships, hobbies, etc. So there's kind of a long tail of that. But what's common is people will have a few different goals across those areas of their lives and then they're using Summit for that accountability, that motivation, ongoing support towards those goals. So, like me, personally, I'm using Summit. My goals are around being healthy, mentally fit physically and mentally fit, around relationships, around career and talking to our users. We've got users across so many different industries.

Alex Roe: 36:59

Last week was talking to someone who's a writer and they're using summit to help them in terms of their scripts and staying consistent to schedule, because as a writer, your days are very non-structured and so they use summit for that. I talked to someone recently who is a video editor and they have these very complex projects and so many different people they're working with and they use summit for kind of helping organize thoughts and just like kind of stay sane with that. We have a lot of people who run their own businesses. I kind of ran into the gamut. I think that's the power of Summit and technology like this is it can really help across, whether you're a young adult just out of college trying to work on career stuff, or someone who is in mid-late career and is transitioning or focused on other things. Yeah, it's just a couple of different areas of where Summit is used.

Alex Roe: 37:51

I would say in terms of like how Summit is used. I would say in terms of like how Summit is used in particular, it's very common that people use Summit in the morning to plan their days. So when they first wake up, they open their app, they can talk to their coach and get a plan and say hey, coach, here is what I'm trying to get done today. Just having someone say that to think through things, ask some questions okay, where might you get blocked, et cetera, is really helpful, and throughout the day, people are typically checking in with their coach. The coach can send reminders and be proactive, and so it might check in with you later on and said hey, alex, looks like you wanted to go for a run today in the afternoon.

Alex Roe: 38:30

How did that go? How was it? And so that's where that accountability really comes in. And then again to end and wind down the day around hey, here's how the day went, let's plan tomorrow and maybe help you wind down and reduce some of that stress before going to bed, just knowing you have a plan for the next day. Again, summit is pretty general across those areas, I would say typically health, fitness, wellness. People have a lot of goals there, kind of career and relationships, hobbies, et cetera.

Dave Liss: 39:00

And then really that accountability in the morning to start your day, to end your day and then kind of throughout the day, based off what you're doing, are there any success stories that come to mind that you've gotten from users about how it's helped them or things that are really remarkable to you?

Alex Roe: 39:16

yeah, I'm trying to think of specifics, but just in general. We get a lot of great feedback that says summit like truly helped me stay accountable to my goals, and I'm trying to get specific ones to relate. So, in climb mount everest for the first time with summit or something to that degree, I would say just like more in general, because these cases are quite varied. I think the general consensus is I'm getting better sleep now because I'm more consistent with my schedule, I'm feeling more willing, I'm getting more done in the day, that type of deal. So I'd say those have been more of the stories, but we should definitely get more. I know there are specific ones that we could pull. We should probably capture those in the future. That'd be pretty cool just seeing what's been accomplished with some of these.

Dave Liss: 39:58

Yeah, I think that would be really great.

"Aussie" Mike James: 40:00

Yeah, alex, I think you answered this question pretty well. But just to reiterate, when you're looking at the key habits or mindsets of successful users and I'm paraphrasing, correct me if I'm wrong you're saying that they really have to make it part of their day. It could be like any other tool. It could be like an exercise bike you get at home and you end up being a clothes horse. You have to integrate it into your day. It can just sit there, otherwise Successful users really help implement it to make it a success Is that correct A hundred percent?

Alex Roe: 40:37

Yeah, and I think you want to start running or you want to start biking, say, you buy the cycle and just sit there and gather stuff. So, yeah, it's a common challenge with any product or habit or goal and why people send these resolutions they never follow up on. So, yeah, I think to some degree with Summit, there's things we can do in terms of we need to make it really easy to use and like how can we make it such that the first time you download summit and get logged in, how do you have like a wow moment, how do you have that first experience? You're like, oh my gosh, like I see the potential of it. That's really critical. It's really that first day in that first week.

Alex Roe: 41:16

How can you have those really great moments where I I get like it, I get like it clicks for me. So that's really important. And then also the why is important, right. Why are you coming in and using summit, like why do you want to do this? So if we can help tease that out to people as well, that's can also be very motivating. So, yeah, I think there's both software things we can do in terms of this, while moments they can get easy to use and really after that first week of using Summit, hopefully they're set up well for success in that regard and I kind of know what they're doing there.

Dave Liss: 41:50

What do you think the future of your technology is, or where you see AI going, ai, intel.

Alex Roe: 41:56

Yeah, I would say in general.

Alex Roe: 41:58

I mean, ai is like here to stay.

Alex Roe: 42:01

I think it's a transformative technology and it's amazing in a lot of ways, right, I think on the same side, like, there are use cases that I think we're figuring out and still learning about, so we're definitely much living in this like future world, which is really exciting.

Alex Roe: 42:18

I would say that just keep an open mind on things right now. I think, even when we just look back over the past year, of how things have changed. They've been very dramatic and I think, will continue to change. And I think what's also exciting is, you know, I feel like we're just still scratching the surface on what the impact of these technologies can be, and so I'm excited to throw a summit, but also the industry as a whole and, I think, the more people who are familiar with AI and use cases and stuff like that, even if you don't have a technology background per se, I think that it's just going to be integrated everywhere, and so, yeah, I think I'm super optimistic on the future. I'm excited about what all is to come and I'm excited to be playing a small part in trying to make that.

Ketil Hviding: 43:01

I have kind of a curiosity in terms of your. I mean, there must be AI with different layers. Are you cooperating with any of the big producers or language models, or have you built everything yourself?

Alex Roe: 43:15

Yeah, so we're leveraging kind of the standard like language models that you've heard of. So, with OpenAI and Anthropic, then we're doing a lot on top of that to make it specific for coaching and then specific for activeness and memory and stuff like that. Yeah, and there's a spectrum. There are situations and times where it makes sense to use your own model or to do what's called fine-tuning in terms of taking one of these models and making it very specific for your own use case and data. So again, it's kind of like a spectrum. There are situations that work very general and there are. If you're asking, we don't even know that. But yeah, it's kind of a spectrum in terms of when you use one of these and how you can manipulate them.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 43:57

Well, have any of the users told you that it did not help them? That AI models didn't help and if so, how do you research that to figure out why that might have happened?

Alex Roe: 44:15

Yeah, totally yeah, no product's ever going to have perfect Like everyone uses it and it's like this what didn't change my life, et cetera. Yeah, we get a lot of feedback from users. We try to send emails to every single user. We have surveys and things that go out as well, and so we get a lot of data in that regard.

Alex Roe: 44:35

Some common patterns, like one challenge you talked about how do you get someone set up? Well, if someone picks a goal they don't care about, for instance, like you just kind of tried and like whatever I'll, just yeah, I'll meditate every day, or whatever right, like that's a common failure pattern, because then you're missing that. Why? Right? Because it's like so that's a failure pattern is just like we haven't done a good enough job on user education or onboarding, where you're wanting to use it, but maybe it's confusing, or you hit like a bug or a glitch and it like kind of gives you the aim. This isn't quite it. Another one is like the coach the memory is really important, but also it's really hard to get right and if you're like I told you this, but wait, now you don't remember, and so's a little bit of that, like the uncanny valley, if you want to put it that term where this thing sounds like a coach and a human in a way, but then if it says misspelled my name or like misremember something, you're like, oh wait a minute, it's actually not.

Alex Roe: 45:33

So, yeah, I think there's like a variety of reasons like that, but we spend a lot of time on the product, just like iterating on it and taking feedback and improving it, and so we try to stay really close to our users and understanding that. I think Dave can attest to that. I try to be pretty responsive on making changes and things aren't working the way they're supposed to. But, yeah, I think we're also trying to figure out too, like who even it's like upstream of marketing right Like who are the right people to target and who? How should we talk about summit Right? Is it an AI life coach? Is it an AI coach? Is it an accountability partner? So I think all those things have an impact on someone being successful or not with them.

Ketil Hviding: 46:11

I have a comment on this on a drill side, because I'm a human motivation. I kind of think that even those sorry, the person that you kind of want a little funny. I think actually you're telling us a little bit more about moderation, but even if you really, 99% of the time, you want them to yell at you, you want that little 1%, a little tap on the shoulder, and that's even more valuable. It's a little bit like sent a little tap on the shoulder and that's even more valuable. It's a little bit like self-inflicted Stockholm syndrome With water, but then you want them to say something nice to you. It's just a comment. I like that, one Kind of self-inflicted.

Alex Roe: 46:56

So one thing that's interesting for me is the coach I'm using actually is it's called Future Alex. So I've gone in and defined, like where I want to be like 10 years from now and gone through and kind of said here are my values, here are my principles, here's like how I kind of envisioned my life to be and that's like my like coach personality that I use and talk to and it actually has my voice as well, like I've kind of recorded my voice and it like clone and that's been really fascinating because and this is how other people as well where there is kind of like that interesting motivation identity right, we know that from like research in terms of like asking identity, it's like oh, you don't want to go for a run this afternoon. Well, who do you want to be? Oh, I'm a runner, I'm a healthy person. Okay, like, and what would that person do? Okay, they would go for a run.

Alex Roe: 47:44

And so I think that's another kind of interesting like edge of motivation in psychology here which is like, for me at least, I'm like okay, I'm motivated to be someone I want to be in the future, and so how do my actions today kind of relate and change or impact that? And so I think that's been interesting. I haven't I don't know the answer to that yet just kind of an interesting thing. We're like noticing a little bit which is like mate, there's a thread here too which is like how do you help people be motivated? By helping them realize who they want to be and then kind of surfacing that back to them on an ongoing basis, and like hearing yourself. It's one thing to like to, but like hearing yourself tell yourself like I mean, it's kind of it's tricky, but it's like really motivating, it's really interesting yeah, I can see it having a big impact.

"Aussie" Mike James: 48:31

Our friend, a mutual friend, richard dr vincent ronville, who's a physical therapist yes, he said he's. How many pieces of paper has he given clients to go home and do these rehab exercises daily? And those pieces of paper probably in the trash can outside Easter, not far away. So something like AI would be really valuable I think with that, because you can't possibly get the human element every day to motivate.

Alex Roe: 48:56

I think what Dr Kinney was saying too right, like there's that, there's like a hybrid solution here which is really nice right, where you have like a professional, where it's like a physical therapist right Okay, here's the plan. And then you have the AI, which is then kind of that, like I don't call it the nagging layer, but that accountability layer, and then there's something powerful where the technology can surface to the physical therapist, like hey, like alex isn't doing his exercises right, and that can be a kind of a nudge then. So I guess the other thing with what we've seen here is like some people kind of want that, like I wanted to be the ai about. I kind of want that, like I want to know there's like a person that's like kind of like monitoring a little bit, and that can help scale right if you think the effectiveness.

Alex Roe: 49:34

But that's the physical therapy program where, as a physical therapist, you can't be texting someone every single day right, no, no, you're like your assistant does that and then surfaces you like, hey, cool, here's what's happening or whatnot, Then you know I think that could be a very effective way of doing this as well, and so I think that's with Summit, we're more of like a pure AI solution, but I think it's natural and logical that these like hybrid solutions really get you like the best of both worlds in some scenarios and use cases.

Dave Liss: 50:08

After our guests left the recording, our host continued the conversation, sharing their reflections and key takeaways. I thought that was really interesting. It was Very interesting actually.

"Aussie" Mike James: 50:26

I mean, I've got to confess I did go onto that website after our last talk. I got the thing, but that's about the last. It's like that exercise bike in the corner, but it really is. You've got to say hey, that's not going to do everything for you.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 50:40

You've got to do something, so we'll do something. Something. Now you have to make some commitment yourself, you can't, yeah, absolutely you just can't on your own, and then and again it goes. Where it's good is that it. It's another tool that actually can have somebody sort of tap you on the shoulder gently, or force you to do those things. Now he said an interesting thing that he created an AI. That was his voice.

"Aussie" Mike James: 51:13

Interesting.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 51:14

Yeah. Other interesting thing is one thing for your coach or your other person who you respect, then you need to do this and you need to do that. It's another thing to have to hear yourself saying to yourself on a daily basis yeah, your ass, no, yeah. That's very different, and so in one way it's a positive thing. Goes back to what we've all said you, the individual, have to. There has to be some degree of willingness and commotion yeah, you've got to be up at the end.

"Aussie" Mike James: 51:55

It's up to you yeah, don't do.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 51:58

if you don't do, it it's still on you and it doesn't.

"Aussie" Mike James: 52:03

But, dave, have you found it's helped you. You've been using it.

Dave Liss: 52:08

It's helpful, I think. Like anything, it's an arrow in the quiver, it's not by itself and there are a lot of variables.

"Aussie" Mike James: 52:16

It's not going to get the job for you You've still got to interview and still got to.

Dave Liss: 52:19

It's definitely going to get the job for you. You've still got to interview and still got to. You know it's definitely been helpful. I use it for different things. I use it to help me write cover letters and just my resumes.

Dave Liss: 52:27

And I had some issues and I worked with Alex and they made some changes. Like it would only do like turn out like 1500 characters, so I would write something and it would respond. Then it would stop and then I said, okay, cut off here. And then I'd like piece it together until it got to the full response and they changed the character limits and then he helped me understand, because it only has memory for a certain number of questions, apparently. And then that's why I said, well, I don't want to have to re-educate this coach every 50 questions or whatever. So they said, okay, we have this foundation thing I was talking about. I uploaded different copies of my resume so it already knows it has some permanence of knowledge.

Dave Liss: 53:14

But I think it's definitely helpful. One thing that really struck me was that like it wasn't judgmental, it just this is what you did. And then, okay, what are we going to do now? Okay, let's take. Okay, that's fine. It doesn't say that's fine, doesn't say anything, it's okay. Here's what we're going to go forward at this point and I I appreciate that I never had a human being that would I feel comfortable having that kind of conversation where feel comfortable having that kind of conversation where it would have that kind of response.

"Aussie" Mike James: 53:42

But there's also the other side of that. I mean, dr K is the least judgmental person I know, but I'm sure as a physician, people almost feel I don't want to disappoint Dr Kennedy. Yeah, I haven't lost the two eggs. Yeah, I'm at the weight I need to lose. So I'll cancel my appointment for another six weeks, I'm sure you do.

Dave Liss: 53:59

I know that happens. That must happen All the time.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 54:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah exactly, but, like he mentioned earlier, you like, using the example of the drill sergeant who, basically the person, just finished running 20 miles and you would think, even if he's going to say, you can do another six and a half miles, you know before you, but you should say great job, you did a good job with that 20 miles, congratulations, etc. Because sometimes for a lot of us, what we want is acknowledgement that yeah yeah, that someone, because we know it, having done it, we feel a certain way about it.

"Aussie" Mike James: 54:45

Yeah.

Dr. Richard Kennedy: 54:45

You always help somebody who's on the other side, or they see you and they haven't seen you in a while and it looks like you lost weight, and so they may never tell you that you lost weight. All I'll say is you look good, you look really good, it's so good seeing you. What are you doing? Yeah, which allows that person to. I said that positive energy that we all need. You know the person might and, mike, you see this with people who you go through work or who reach that plateau. Yeah, they've done as much as they can do with this particular routine and they're no longer gaining anything, so they're not any faster or they can't do as many reps, or whatever it is. Yeah, that's when that human touch comes in, while saying look, okay, this is where you are now. Do you have another goal or is your goal still the same? Did you lose? Because sometimes you just open that door where it's always been the thought process, but because a person never felt about going beyond this point. Don't realize that, gee, I could actually go further.

"Aussie" Mike James: 56:05

It really has been a fascinating conversation. I'm sure the other Musketeers also have had their aha moments, as I have, listening to you and just thinking how it can be incorporated into our lives, especially with my trusty Apple Watch. So it's been really great talking to you, Alex, and we're excited about the future of wellness, with AI at the helm and Summit, of course. So to our listeners, we hope this episode has inspired you to think differently about how technology can enhance your wellness journey. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please subscribe to Wellness Musketeers and share this episode with anyone interested in health, wellness and productivity. Your support helps us continue creating impactful content. We'd love to hear from you. Send your questions or ideas for future episodes to davidmliss at gmailcom. Until next time, stay well.