The use of AI in the training world is already a successful business model. This is mainstream now. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting that but there’s only going to be more of it coming at you. If I were the emperor of Zwift product I would want to cater to the people who want that and also the people who want nothing to do with it and also the people who might want it if it were more polished. Just give them a choice and then innovate to your heart’s content.
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Exactly this.
Agree x 3. Choice.
And. I have no clue how Zwift is accessing AI. I hear it’s really expensive. I really don’t want to be paying for AI. I know I really don’t have a choice, as part of my subscription is likely for ‘development’.
I agree, it’s here and here to stay. So, if I have to see it I only hope it gets better.
New discovery on my end; skipped my usual Monday due to two handfuls of stings from yellow jackets, so my week is a little abnormal.
I’m on a ‘unique’ week, for those familiar, so 36% Z1, 39% Z2, 9% Z4, 8.4% Z5… so, high VO2 week for me.
What’s interesting is the “AI” recommendation is another VO2 workout; though also says “recent recovery” … aka, inflating like a balloon from poison, but we can ignore that. I find it weird after this much VO2 effort over past two days it’s recommending it.
too much weighting towards recent efforts? and why some of us get recommended threshold all the time?
I’m intrigued. It says it’s giving you a VO2 Max ride. All the screen shows is a 50km route. How does that all work? On screen prompts? A route-based workout?
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“Remove the AI-generated recommendation rationale text.”
That should solve part of the problem.
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This has been one of my criticisms. A route isn’t a workout. The routes it chooses are unrelated to the intensities recommended. Today I’m being recommended a sweet spot ride on Green to Screen, but the target audience for this might have no idea what sweet spot even means. Only a pace partner or an erg workout can deliver on what’s being recommended (or perhaps an event if it would look at usual riding times and compare against races and group rides, but that’s still dependent on who shows up).
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I know not everyone subscribes to Strava, but this is quite significant
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I went from overreaching to not riding for a week straight. “Stable training load” is not how I would describe my week. I also had 23 hours in the last 3 weeks before this, I’m not sure how a 40 minute easy cruise is complementing anything
@AlanZ Can you please also opt me out. Thanks!
All this time later I just noticed the “More Options” in the Zwift main menu…
Has anyone else actually clicked on that yet?
It seemed to have actually decent workout recommendations.
Why is the Companion version so useless by comparison?
I did notice today if you click on it and get the outdoors version if seems more reasonable in terms of recommendations.
But the catch:
So what if you do what the Next Up recommendation says?
It doesn’t say congratulations you did the recommendation.. there’s no affirmation that you did anything relating to it.
The lack of wrap-up will need addressing at some point. Of course if you click on the Next up it’ll add it to your list of things to do and/or put you in the route/workout…
But after that, there’s nothing involving the Next Up feature. Once you click on it, that’s it. That’s the whole ‘feature.’
Just feels like from an end-user perspective, if it’s here to guide you, it attempts to show you what hand-holding looks like, but then once you click “go” it disappears like it never existed; there is no more guidance or recommendation, not until… 12 hours? later?
I want to like the Next Up feature, I do, and the more time I spend poking around it continues to feel less and less connected to anything. It almost feels like it needs to be separated entirely.
It needs to give a proper regimen based on some user input (ie: I want to prepare for a race, I want to increase endurance, I want to maintain, I want to improve X).
But it needs to also be able to hold your hand before, during (banners like weekly goal reached can be used here), and immediately after.
If we do progress with NextUp, we have to be informed of what we are/aren’t doing.
Otherwise it will always feel like the feature is just recommending random stuff for no reason, and will want to be removed/ignored en-masse forever.
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Nailed it.
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@NicolasDM you are now opted out 
Please just wait a few minutes for the change to propagate from our end to your client, but after that the change should be visible after logging out and logging back in.
I’ve done it. I have after multiple years of riding managed to hit productive on Garmin, Intervals, and am now showing up as Overreaching on NextUp.
Hang onto your butts though this is a doozy and my ‘final review’.
Since whatever changes were made though it’s only giving me route recommendations; the outdoor recommendations as the text are FAR superior to the original indoor/zwift ones.
I think I’d prefer to see the workouts come back assuming they can be fixed?
NextUp should be able to look at your riding per day or week and judge how long of a workout you should or would want to do (for stable users that is), as a starting place on how long of a workout should be.
Intensity of course should be based on your load, nothing new here.
Load focus can be used to choose the type; vo2, threshold, etc.
I think it’s solvable.
I still don’t hate NextUp.
But what I do massively dislike is the route recommendations and the wording coinciding it.
Today’s for reference after my rides this morning:
Indoors: Watopia Figure 8 for 60 minutes
“Daily riding has you managing fatigue; today’s endurance ride helps you stay on top of your load while keeping intensity in check”
Outdoors:
“Easy 60 minutes spin. Tomorrow matters more than today. Keep the legs loose, stay in Endurance, and come home feeling better than you left.”
My takeaway again here:
Figure 8 is hilly, has a steep climb, and boasts two segments for a very short route, a sprint and a KOM… it shouldn’t be recommended for ‘an easy spin’. My personal take is that the indoor and outdoor recommendations really don’t match that well, and I think that’s been fairly consistent as well from what I’ve seen.
Whatever is going on with the outdoor recommendations IMO is doing a superior job, and clearly was a step in the right direction from the original release.
I think it’s fair to say I’ve seen all NextUp offers now between being sick, to now listed as overreaching, and all inbetween; and I think this is a fair assessment.
Get rid of the route recommendations, it’s too much work to make it work, and this point proves it; a short route that technically might be listed as ‘easy’ in terms of completion to ride the route, is what I’m assuming why it’s picking it; when in reality, as stated it’s a multi-segment route with a very steep climb in the middle of it, making it actually a far from safe route for getting a user to do endurance pace.
Look at those three key metrics and go back to recommending workouts.
Something that fits in roughly the same block of time length as you rode ‘today’ last week, or maybe previous two weeks for safety, is a safe bet it will fit in a user’s schedule week-by-week.
Check the load and focus, and determine where work needs to be done; haven’t sprinted in a while? Do sprints.
This is a game of safety; NextUp doesn’t have to be a coach that knows when you can do more or need to back off some, nor does it know your schedule going forward is.
But it should be able to be a tool someone can use, to get stronger with.
If a user doesn’t feel well or didn’t sleep well they don’t have to do what it recommends, so that shouldn’t be a concern.
But it should be able to tell if a user is riding a lot of X, that it should start to recommend Y.
Last but not least… users need to be able to disable it. Some people out there only want to ride a bike, they don’t want recommendations to get stronger.
Alternatively… put it somewhere else less important. Those of us who want to look at it, can go and find it.
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That description seems like a lot of manpower hours for very little gained by the users. Already some users cannot find the factory challenge.
Suggesting routes not ridden would be completely wrong for some. I don’t ride long flat routes, only hilly. Flat riders would likely be dissatisfied with constant climb routes suggested.
This is a constant battle, satisfy some while annoying a minority. However, it may be the minority who complain the most and turn to the forums.
I’m concerned that the ones who opted out above are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more would join if they knew it existed.
How many would sign up for a club with an exclusive world or route? Say, Italy with some real climbs. That feels like a better route for the money.
@Michael_Thorne_SISU you should now be opted out as well
Please just wait a few minutes for the change to propagate from our end to your client, but after that the change should be visible after logging out and logging back in.
P.S. I also hid your Zwift ID number as I can already see it on our end, and it doesn’t need to be public for others to find 
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Much appreciated @AlanZ Thanks!
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NextUp: Well-intended, but please just give us a toggle to turn it off! 
Long story short: in its current state, NextUp is useless, if not outright dangerous. The biggest issue is that Zwift simply doesn’t capture your actual, current threshold power accurately. Your FTP isn’t a static number; it changes daily and is influenced by a ton of fluctuating variables. Since everyone’s training zones are completely unique, the system ends up targeting the wrong intensity—and wrong intensity inevitably leads to completely wrong training recommendations.
On top of that, fitness isn’t a one-way street. Training requires proper yearly periodization because recovery weeks are crucial; you can’t just progress upwards non-stop.
At the end of the day, I know what’s good for my body way better than Zwift does. I recalculate my threshold power on a daily basis: during the workout, I use my Suunto Race S to track my real-time physiological strain and training intensity via HRV. Post-ride, I analyze those current HRV values in Golden Cheetah to precisely dial in my individual training zones. That approach is lightyears ahead of any generic AI formulas.
So here is my appeal: Let us just turn this thing off ourselves! A simple deactivate button is all it takes. Ride on!
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Well Zwift said that such option would be available in the future. But they also said that everyone who is opted out now will be put back in …