Generative AI fashions have demonstrated to app builders that combining a strong information base with the correct mannequin can allow them to supply customers providers — as soon as reliant on expensive professionals like therapists or govt assistants — at a fraction of the value. Former VP of product at health firm Whoop, Rami Alhamad, has an analogous tackle vitamin together with his new app Alma.
The iOS app, launching for customers in North America in the present day, is a well-designed app with a calorie tracker and a vitamin information with an AI layer on prime of it.
Alhamad thinks that health apps like MyFitnessPal make vitamin monitoring tedious, with customers having to manually seek for dishes and enter them for several types of meals. As a substitute, he thinks it is best to simply speak to (or sort to) Alma’s AI assistant about what you ate, and the app will determine the parts and calorie consumption via estimates. You may regulate these measures after the app exhibits you calorie rely as properly.
Alternatively, you’ll be able to take a photograph of your meal, and the AI algorithm will determine dishes for you. Such options are already accessible in apps like Kholsa-backed Healthify and YC-backed Snapcalorie. Nevertheless, Alma is banking on its design, number of enter strategies, and ease of use as key drivers for progress.
Apart from calorie monitoring, you’ll be able to ask the AI assistant to recommend meals to satisfy your targets of fiber and protein consumption. Plus, you’ll be able to add a menu image and ask the AI assistant to suggest appropriate gadgets based on your purpose.
The app additionally offers you a rating, which is predicated on what you ate on a selected day by way of energy and macros. The app makes use of that rating to provide you recommendations on enhancing your weight loss plan.
What’s extra, as you chat extra with the AI assistant within the app, it learns your preferences and offers you ideas accordingly. You may see these insights in your profiles and edit them as properly.
The corporate expects to make cash via a month-to-month subscription of $19 or an annual subscription of $199.
The story behind Alma and future plans
Alhamad, who constructed a sports activities tech startup known as Push and ultimately offered it to Whoop, instructed TechCrunch he was considering of doing one thing new within the space of well being and vitamin after exiting Whoop in 2022. In response to him, whereas there are trackers for exercises and sleep, there isn’t a sensible resolution to monitoring vitamin.
“For the final 10 years of my life, I’ve always gained and misplaced weight. I’ve spent a very long time on apps like MyFitnessPal, typing stuff to trace my meals consumption. When ChatGPT got here round, identical to numerous different folks, I began utilizing it for meal planning and kitchen help. Nevertheless, it wasn’t personalised. So final yr, after I left Whoop, I began eager about this downside,” Alhamad mentioned.
Alhamad, who grew to become an entrepreneur in residence at Menlo Ventures to construct Alma, believes that within the shopper house, there will probably be specialised corporations utilizing AI that target just one subject. The startup has raised $2.9 million from Menlo Ventures and Anthropic till now.
On the technical entrance, the corporate is utilizing a mixture of fashions to get outcomes. Alma famous that it’s utilizing information from Harvard Diet to fetch solutions. The corporate mentioned it has a number of folks on workers specializing in dietary information to develop its information set. Alhamad mentioned that the startup additionally needs to look past the U.S. to convey well being information from all over the world.
The Alma crew want to construct on meals discovery within the app as properly. At the moment, you’ll be able to ask for recipes and get solutions from the AI assistant, however you’ll be able to’t save them for future reference. The app needs to auto-populate meals ideas based mostly in your targets and preferences. Plus, it can even have a method to cook dinner meals simply from what you might have within the pantry.
Chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude can already do numerous these issues, however the friction for the consumer is that you must immediate them appropriately with context every time. Apps like Alma try to remove the headache of writing lengthy prompts via app options. Samsung’s Food app gained some options like pantry monitoring and recipe ideas based on the items that you have in the house last year.
Shawn Carolan, a associate at Menlo VC, mentioned that ease of getting into your meals consumption makes Alma a lovely resolution.
“If I eat 20 issues in a day, it’s powerful to file every one in all them by looking for them in an inventory. With Alma, you’ll be able to simply speak to it and register all of that rapidly. If one thing took you 30 seconds and a brand new app reduces that to just some seconds, it turns into a key utilization driver,” Carolan mentioned.
He added that proper now, loads of individuals are not consulting a nutritionist, and Alma may give them quick access to that type of info.
“Persons are spending hundreds of {dollars} a month to get injections to shed extra pounds. So the query is, should you had this good nutritionist in your pocket who may enable you to along with your purpose, perhaps you’ll be able to take a drug-free strategy to attaining your well being targets,” Carolan mentioned.
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