Then, now and next.
When Covid forced personal fitness online in 2020, our Founder, Max was already ahead of the game - as a PT he had already been training his clients remotely for years, and saw both the potential and the limitations existing technology had to offer.
Max knew the future of fitness lay in technology, but the existing model of spreadsheets and WhatsApps clearly wasn’t fit for purpose. So he set out to change it.
By 2021 Max’s online training offering became Another Round - an online personal training app designed to bring affordability and accessibility to personal fitness - with emerging AI technology at its core.
Later that year Jesse Shanahan began working as our external AI Architect, bringing with her the belief that Large Language Models would not effectively solve the problem of reliably and consistently creating effective, personalised workouts at scale.
Turned out she was right. By the end of 2021, we had our MVP AI. Although very simple compared to what Vor is now, it gave us our jumping off point to begin testing and iterating.
Alongside this, the Another Round app gave us the opportunity to test and refine our methodologies with real coaches, delivering real virtually. It helped us to always build useful features, and never tech for tech's sake.
After proving the concept with our MVP, it was time to raise serious funds, and begin building our full automation engine.
In Spring 2023, we made the decision to pivot into the B2B market. With significant previous investment from the likes of (Vor board member) Peter Roberts, founder of PureGym, our AI development had already accelerated and we were building, testing and iterating at pace. By the end of 2023 we had a fully functioning prototype combining AI and theoretical physics.
In 2024 we launched Vor, making our newly developed tech available to enhance the way fitness and wellness businesses deliver their offerings online through scale and accessibility.
Our adaptive AI technology (and the human team behind it) is continually advancing - processing millions of data points and improving the service we can deliver to our clients.
We have set out to become the no.1 in workout automation, transforming millions of lives in the process, and becoming a significant force in fitness and healthcare globally. And we're well on our way to achieving this goal.
Spring 2021
Begin research into AI for creating workouts
Summer 2021
Future CTO Jesse Shanahan begins build of AI MVP
Winter 2021
Launch our AI MVP, the genesis of what would become the Vor engine three years later
Spring 2022
PureGym founder Peter Roberts joins as investor and board member, tech development accelerates
Autumn 2022
Launch AI prototype.
Hire Head of Product Sam Brown Abreu, Jesse joins as CTO
Spring 2023
Pivot to B2B focus and begin development of full AI based on prototype learnings and enterprise needs, a large undertaking
Autumn 2023
We have lift-off: first programmes delivered combining AI + theoretical physics
Spring 2024
Launch full enterprise AI based on prototype learnings, now with a demo front-end to show what Vor is capable of.
May 2024
Launch of our parent B2B brand Vor. Another Round remains as our consumer app and brand, powered by Vor technology.
Jun 2024
First live Vor demos at Elevate at the excel.
Oct 2024
We are operational, and taking on early adopters who want to gain a significant competitive advantage.
To be continued..
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FAQs
We know that personal trainers add huge value to gyms and the fitness industry, and many of their skills can't be replaced by technology.
Vor automates the workout creation portion of a trainer's role. It can be used by personal trainers in planning workout programmes and classes. Alternatively, Vor can be used directly by exercisers with varying degrees of trainer supervision, customisation and control.
No. When it comes to your tech stack, Vor can integrate with your internal or external applications via API.
For example, Vor workouts can be delivered via an existing member app directly to exercisers. Or, Vor can be made available via an existing trainer portal to assist teams with workout programming.
If you don't have a tech stack in place, Vor can be accessed by a simple web application from any device.
From a gym equipment perspective, Vor creates workouts customised to your available equipment and gym floor layout. You don't need to invest in any new gym equipment to embed Vor into your operations.
Vor has been intentionally designed by our experienced team of AI experts and personal trainers every step of the way. Rooted in exercise science best practices, it uses parameters for injuries, targets, training environments and backgrounds to make sure that workouts are safe, appropriate and effective for exercisers.
There is no erroneous data or guesswork within the Vor engine - every workout generated is reliable, explainable and traceable.
Our automation engine is not a plugin to a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT, which often provides unreliable and unpredictable results that might look good enough to the untrained eye, but aren’t safe or appropriate for exercisers.
We have been pioneering our unique technology since 2021 and it is engineered specifically for physical exercise. LLMs, on the other hand, are generalist devices designed to mimic human language, rather than find the right answer. This is potentially injurious in fitness, when the wrong answer, delivered confidently to the end user, could easily lead to injury.
The Vor Engine has consistently and significantly outperformed LLMs (and specifically ChatGPT) in workout creation from both a quality and safety standpoint since we launched our first full working version for testing in 2023.
Today, our tech benchmarks at 100-200 X faster workout generation for personal trainers when compared with writing personalised workout programmes manually. This is a hugely significant time and cost saving for your bottom-line.
