About MyFitnessPal
Founded in 2005, MyFitnessPal is the #1 global nutrition and food tracking app with a mission to help people around the world reach their health goals through better food choices by providing knowledge, motivation, and a sense of progress.
Supporting nearly 1 million people in reaching their nutrition and fitness goals every year, and with a community of over 250 million users in 120 countries, MyFitnessPal offers members one of the world’s most comprehensive nutrition and food tracking platforms, allowing them to track their food, record exercise activity, and log their weight.
With one of the largest food databases in the world comprising over 19 million foods, access to over 2,000 recipes, more than 40 workout routines, and over 40 connected fitness partners, MyFitnessPal provides members with the tools for positive healthy change.
MyFitnessPal’s Challenge
As part of its mission to continuously improve the user experience, MyFitnessPal recognized the immense potential of incorporating GenAI within its product suite. MyFitnessPal needed to bolster its internal team with an agency that had capacity to scope, prototype, and iterate on key innovative features.
To increase user engagement, MyFitnessPal sought to develop a voice-logging feature that allows users to log their food conversationally, with the system accurately and comprehensively recording food items, quantities, and even brands or packaged foods in a single, streamlined step. Blending natural language processing with GenAI, the system will translate speech to text, match it with food records in the database, and precisely record all user input, simplifying the food logging process for MyFitnessPal’s users.
“I want to be able to tap and speak all of the ingredients or food items I ate for a given meal so I don’t have to search and type each one individually,” said Dustin Manderfeld, MyFitnessPal’s VP of Data Science & Engineering. “Or multiple meals – If I can say everything I’ve eaten for the entire day, why can’t I log all my food in one step?”
Why Tribe AI?
To overcome this challenge, the company brought in Tribe AI’s team of AI experts and practitioners to serve as an extension of MFP’s product organization, igniting its AI product roadmap and transforming its legacy products into AI-powered experiences that truly put customers first.
“Tribe has been a great partner and their model works exceptionally well. I’ve loved the flexibility and having a demo every week that we can share with the rest of the company.”
– Dustin Manderfeld, VP of Data Science & Engineering
Proposed Solution
By the end of the sprint, the Tribe team of AI Engineers and Product Managers built a functional demo capable of logging multiple items in a single interaction. The prototype, called Voice Log, makes food tracking as simple as having a conversation. Members can select the feature via the app’s navigation bar, grant access to their phone’s microphone if it’s the first time they’re using the feature, say what they ate in everyday language, and log the items based on the best matches suggested by the app. Members can review, make adjustments if needed, and tap “Log” to complete the process.
Tech Stack Details
Full-stack cloud-based application working alongside the existing MyFitnessPal environment:
- Cloud: AWS Bedrock
- Large language models: Anthropic Claude 2
- Languages used:
- Frontend: React
- Backend: Django
Impact & The Future
Throughout the span of this project, Tribe AI empowered MyFitnessPal to accelerate its AI product roadmap and unlock the full potential of its legacy products, augmenting and improving the user experience in ways that truly resonate with its customers. Tribe has also inspired the company’s leadership to double down on a culture of experimentation and create a dedicated prototyping environment within MyFitnessPal.
With this agile approach and a commitment to continuous improvement, MyFitnessPal has positioned itself to quickly identify and develop innovative AI-powered features that will reinforce its position as a leader in the health and fitness industry.
