The Most Interesting Thing in A.I. The AI Athlete - with Nicholas Thompson and Will Ahmed
Oct 22, 2025
Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO of Whoop, shares insights on how wearable health technology is revolutionizing athletic performance. He explores how AI enhances monitoring sleep, recovery, and overall health. Ahmed discusses future metrics for glucose and mood tracking, the balance between personalization and privacy, and how AI can provide conversational health coaching. He also reflects on the importance of health span versus performance and envisions a future where AI enables preventative healthcare, making traditional checkups obsolete.
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How WHOOP Measures Physiology
- WHOOP uses light-based photoplethysmography plus movement and other physiological signals to infer heart rate and HRV from the wrist.
- That multimodal sensing plus machine learning maps raw signals to sleep stages and recovery metrics.
Sleep Staging From Wrist Signals
- WHOOP maps many signals (movement, HR, HRV, temperature, SpO2) with machine learning to determine sleep stages and disturbances.
- The company validated models against polysomnography in sleep labs to train those mappings.
Use Breathing To Improve HRV
- Practice controlled breathing to influence your autonomic state and raise HRV when stressed.
- Use WHOOP's stress monitor to track relative stress versus your baseline and apply breathing tools.