What is Google Health Coach? The premium AI fitness tech explained

Alongside Google’s long-awaited Fitbit Air announcement, the brand unveiled its newly revamped health app.

Coined Google Health, the app has replaced the old Fitbit app and houses the new AI-powered Health Coach. Built with Gemini, Health Coach promises to offer genuinely personalised training plans that are designed specifically for individuals, rather than offering a one-size-fits-all policy. But how does Google Health Coach really work and where can you find it? Will you need to splurge to benefit from the feature?

We explain everything you need to know about Google Health Coach including what it really is, where you can find it and how much it’ll set you back.

For more on Google’s recent announcements, visit our Fitbit Air vs Whoop, Fitbit Air vs Charge 6 and Fitbit Air vs Oura Ring 4 guides. Alternatively if you’d prefer more of an overview, our best fitness trackers and best smartwatch guides lists our favourites from the past year.

What is Google Health Coach?

Google Health Coach sits within the new Google Health smartphone app, but specifically behind the Google Health Premium subscription. This means to access Google Health Coach, you’ll need to be signed up to the monthly or annual plan – which will set you back $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.

Google Health Coach is built with Gemini and is designed to provide users with the “most personalised, holistic, adaptive coaching possible”. When you first sign up, you’ll have an “onboarding conversation” which allows you to share specific goals, details about your daily routine, the type of equipment you have access to and other general lifestyle context that might be relevant with the Coach.

Then, according to Google, the Health Coach will take these details and provide you tailored guidance and insights. Plus, Health Coach can update routines and plans according to your preferences too. 

Aside from sitting across the Google Health app, the Coach is available at any time to answer questions, much like a typical AI-powered chatbot.

How much does Google Health Coach cost?

As mentioned earlier, Google Health Coach is part of the Google Health Premium subscription, and will cost either $9.99 a month or $99 a year. However, at the time of writing, all Fitbit Air purchases will come with three months of the subscription free.

In addition, Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers will benefit from Google Health Premium at no additional cost too.

How can I find Google Health Coach?

Google Health Coach sits within the Google Health app, and can be found across the Today, Fitness, Sleep and Health tabs. Google explains the Today tab acts as the home for Coach’s insights, and provides an overview on your fitness and sleep metrics from the past day, alongside nutrition and cycle tracking and even environmental context like location and weather too. 

The Fitness tab will house your tracked workouts and step count, but will also offer tailored workout suggestions and the ability to create entirely custom workouts via the Coach.

As its name suggests, the Sleep tab will explain your sleeping habits and help you understand your sleep consistency while offering advice on how to make improvements. 

Coach within the Health tab can provide summaries of your personal health records and make them “easier to digest”. However, at the time of writing, only users in the US will be able to share their medical records with the Coach. 

Finally, the Coach is launching first for eligible Fitbit and Pixel Watch users from May 19 to May 26, coinciding with the launch of the Fitbit Air. However, Google has promised that support for other devices is “coming soon”, though no firm date has been provided just yet.