The biggest news in tech for the past 7-8 months has been AI, and the huge leaps made in this space with the release of ChatGPT and other tools. While the jury’s still debating whether these leaps are bringing us closer to Utopia or our Matrixish demise, it’s clear that AI can be used in simple ways today make our lives better.
Recommendation engines are one example where AI has been used for years to surface the things we’re looking for (think Amazon’s suggested items or Netflix’s suggest viewing). This week Zwift released their new “For You” home screen feature, which is essentially a recommendation engine for your Zwift session. First announced in December 2022, “For You” is a row of activity recommendations (or as Zwift says, a “personalized collection of experiences”) based on how you Zwift.
Let’s dig into how this works, and where it may go next.
Personalized Recommendations
The new “For You” sits near the top of your home screen, just below the featured event boxes. It includes the following items:
- Upcoming events you’ve signed up for (but only those starting soon)
- “Join a Zwifter”
- Recommended workouts, including your workout for today Today’s Plan or TrainingPeaks
- Recommended RoboPacer groups
- A recommended route to ride
“For You” may also include other items – one of our test accounts included a box linking to the main Training Plans page.
Seven Ideas
Zwift says, “This is a feature that will evolve over time. In its current phase – it’s designed to encourage exploration of the many types of Zwifty activities.”
After taking a quick look at my “For You” row, here are several ideas I have for the next evolution of the feature:
- Today’s Training Plan workout: the carousel already shows today’s workout if you’re connected to TrainingPeaks or Today’s Plan. Why not show the next scheduled workout if you’re signed up for one of Zwift’s Training Plans? Big miss, but an easy fix.
- Route badge recommendations: I’m not sure how Zwift is deciding which routes to recommend for free rides, but it clearly isn’t based on whether I have the badge or not. Recommending routes that roughly match up with what I typically ride each week on this particular day, and whose badge I haven’t yet earned, seems like a great pick.
- Event recommendations: create a profile for the type of events I tend to join on a given day, then recommend upcoming events that match.
- Hide “Join a Zwifter” if none are online: if none of my friends are online, hide this box to make room for better recommendations. (Currently it just shows any pro riders who are online.)
- Better RoboPacer picks: it appears the current RoboPacer recommendations are based on my power history, not my RoboPacer history. (I assume this because it is recommending Jacques, a 3.0W/kg bot I haven’t joined in months, while not recommending the lower-powered Maria Maria who I’ve joined in recent weeks.)
- Recommend more: the “For You” carousel currently appears limited to just 7 boxes. Why not 10 or 15? If each item has a good reason to be there (see below), it doesn’t hurt to include more. Just keep the most relevant ones to the left (and maybe make it easier to scroll horizontally…)
- Tell me why: it would be great to see why Zwift recommended a particular experience. Mouse over a free ride route: “You haven’t earned this route badge!” Mouse over a recommended workout: “This will help boost your dismal VO2max!” 😊
Where To Next?
Zwift has so much content (think events and the workout library) that it can be hard to pick what you should do on any given day. I hope “For You” is just the tip of Zwift’s recommendation iceberg.
Imagine if the system could become truly intelligent, recommending workouts like a skilled coach and picking races that match your typical race activities. It could even look at your recent activities to determine how fresh your legs are, recommending recovery activities on easy days and races/workouts/tough group rides on hard days. The game could interview you about your goals, then make recommendations to help you get there.
There’s much potential here, and Zwift is only scratching the surface. If they can hone the game to become a better training partner/coach, everyone wins.
Questions or Comments?
Got other ideas for improving “For you? Chime in on this forum post to make sure your input is seen by Zwift staff. Got questions? See the You may also comment below!
Allow less/more, favourite/block to allow user to coach the algorithm.
Agreed with the improvement ideas.
Some of the boxes should be customizable to insert your favourite robos, routes, workouts and adjust the order.
Customizable might be nice, but on the other hand I think come on… computers are smart enough these days. With our Zwifter histories sitting on Zwift’s servers, we should be able to tech to deliver a “For You” list that is even better than what we’d come up with ourselves!
Totally. Advertising 101.
All of my items are way off. The workouts are wrong. The courses are ones I dislike. It seems pointless.
The Robopacer selection on the “For You” row took me to random spots on course three times in a row. The Robopacer selection on the Robopacer row took me to the Robopacer.
I experienced issues with robopacers Saturday and Monday where Saturday a few my attempts to join in the old fashioned way placed me nowhere near the group for just the island. On Monday, every robopacer I attempted to join put me by my lonesome away from the group.
Since I saw ChatGPT I thought it would be great to use it to drive the RoboPacer dialog instead of the standard set of messages they use. It would look more like a real conversation.
Would be great if you could get Zwift to take data from apps like Strava or Garmin Connect so that it knows if you are due for a recovery ride or if you need an anaerobic workout. This would then take account of IRL activities as well, which Zwift cannot see.
Per my FB question it seems like a new road in watopia has appeared. It runs along the shoreline of Titan Grove?
Yes, it’s the new Repack Rush. See discussion at https://zwiftinsider.com/6-zwift-leaks/
Promising article. Love the ideas. Looks like Zwift is listening and can maximise the benefits of AI with the ideas suggested in the article and from Zwifters. Can’t wait to actually see them in game.
For You – We recommend you do a downhill only route.
One of my beefs with Zwift is that they love to surface small amounts of actually useful information surrouned by a sea of graphics that provide little or no additional information. Compare trying to find an event in the Zwift UI, or the Companion App versus Zwiftpower or Zwifthacks. The official product is mostly useless. The other ones are actually useful. I live in fear that Zwift decides that Zwiftpower needs a facelift to make it look more like the rest of Zwift 🙁 Effectively this means (for me at least) is always look for events in Zwiftpower, join from… Read more »
Great article.
Some very good suggestions
I wish there was a better system for implementing, displaying, and suggesting workout plans. Whenever I sign up for a Zwift workout plan, there doesn’t seem a clear example of what workout to do on what day. Seems like you’re able to choose which workout to do during the week when 4 workouts are planned for the week. Wish there was more guidance and structure with the plans system.