Keeping Humans in the (Feedback) Loop: Orangetheory Fitness’s Ameen Kazerouni

Ameen Kazerouni, chief data and analytics officer at Orangetheory Fitness (OTF), believes that AI’s role isn’t to replace human experts but rather to help them make better decisions. That’s why OTF collects heart rate and telemetry data during its in-studio fitness classes: so that AI algorithms can turn that data into feedback that empowers people to make real-time choices about their workouts and enables coaches to offer personalized recommendations. On this episode, Ameen joins Sam and Shervin to describe how OTF’s data collection and algorithms are used to create a curated fitness experience for its members, and he explains why it’s critical to keep humans in the feedback loop when implementing artificial intelligence. Read the episode transcript here. Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger. Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn. Guest bio: Ameen Kazerouni is chief data and analytics officer at Orangetheory Fitness. Over the course of his career, Kazerouni has had the opportunity to use machine learning in a variety of fields, including clinical research, medical imaging, data warehouse design, e-commerce, and now health and wellness. He is currently focused on the challenges of operationalizing large volumes of data into scalable customer solutions and strategic initiatives. A core belief of his is to “build experiences, not algorithms,” which drives his team to put forward scalable solutions with measurable impact on real-world use cases. In his free time, Kazerouni enjoys keeping up to date with the latest methods in artificial intelligence and the newest comedy specials on Netflix, burning his savings on expanding his smart home, and marching down the path of becoming bionic by quantifying himself with any and all wearable fitness tech. We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.