The AI Playbook for Fitness and Wellness Professionals

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword or concept worth monitoring. It’s a game-changing tool well within the reach of most fitness and wellness businesses, which can help streamline and optimize essential tasks like answering calls, booking training and managing inventory. The result is a more efficient system that adds up to more members and better retention.

In the ATN webinar, “AI and the Future of Fitness: What Will Separate the Leaders from the Laggards” (available below on demand), Dheeraj Koneru, the co-founder of Zenoti, a cloud-based software platform powering over 30,000 brands in the sector, explains how operators can embrace the technology immediately, sharing actionable recommendations and key background information to get started.

Koneru argues that leveraging AI starts with recognizing that the industry is moving past the SaaS model built around dashboards and manual workflows. The next wave, Koneru argues, won’t be defined by better screens — it will be defined by AI agents. For instance, these agents can handle all booking operations, including answering the phone, making appointments and updating appointments. “You’ll start to see this transformation fairly quickly over the latter part of this year to the early part of next year, because this is what everyone is focused on now,” he said.

In order to maximize your AI ROI, Koneru says operators must embrace machine learning, which is the category of AI that spots patterns and makes decisions. This means preparing company data, which starts with consolidating platforms — including member management, loyalty and marketing — as much as possible so their data lives in fewer places. The more scattered the data is, the harder it becomes for AI to connect the dots, learn what’s working and what isn’t, and make advantageous decisions.

“It may not ever be 100% but the more you bring together, the better,” Koneru says. “Why is that important? Because then, within that platform, all the data will come together instead of being scattered and you having to figure out.”

Koneru, who once owned a gym chain, highlights the common challenges similar businesses face — and the speed with which agents can handle them. One by one he addresses the everyday issues that are all too common, from missed leads and high cancellations to low member engagement and inefficient workflows.

He also spends ample time answering top of mind questions from real operators and provides viewers with early access to Zenoti’s 2026 Fitness Leadership Roundtables — a series of in-person conversations across the country designed to help owners go deeper, compare notes and build a clearer path forward.