It is a quiet weekday morning and I’m standing in my living room being personally trained by a hologram of the former England cricketer Alastair Cook. He is dressed in sports kit and his voice is earnest as he takes me through the exercises we will cover in the 45-minute workout. Once we kick off, he counts my reps and corrects my form; after a lacklustre squat he instructs me to “get lower”.
No, I did not commission my own Cook hologram — this is a session with the Magic AI Mirror. It looks like a regular mirror, with some very key differences: first, the holographic former England captain and second, when I’m about five feet away an invisible camera identifies my body and starts to track my movements.
I do ten reps of biceps curls and the number flashes up on the screen (and, gratifyingly, the words “You smashed it”). But when my stance is wrong I’m taken to task (“Knee in line with toe,” Cook says sternly). There’s no hiding — unlike in my regular boxing class, where I can slink behind a punch bag.
The exercise industry is making a bet on AI. A report in 2022 put the global AI fitness and wellness market at £6.1 billion and forecast that it would grow to £26.2 billion by 2030. Varun Bhanot, the CEO of Magic AI Mirror, launched the product in 2021, inspired by his own “radical transformation” after working with a personal trainer. Bhanot realised that if he could make one-to-one personalised training available on demand for a lot less money, he could have a hit on his hands.
You do get bang for your buck. You can choose from a variety of classes — HIIT, core, cardio and conditioning, with boxing and yoga classes coming — and filter by level (beginner, intermediate or advanced). There is also a range of four-week programmes that require three or four sessions a week in front of the mirror.
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Cook is not the only holographic Mr Motivator: other virtual PTs include the Team GB sprinter Desirèe Henry and Katya Jones, the Strictly Come Dancing star, who has also recorded dance workouts that will be released soon — sequins not included.
The technology is smart: you get advice on when to increase or decrease your weights based on how you’re getting on in a class. Unlike with a human trainer there’s no one to notify if you have an injury, although Bhanot says they’re working on tech that “would allow you to point to the injured muscle areas and the AI will disregard any exercise involving those body parts”. Fitness nerds get their data hit — an estimate of the calories you’ve burnt pops up on screen after the session.
But the main selling point is definitely the convenience. The mirror comes into its own when my husband has to travel for work: housebound with two sleeping children, I creep downstairs in the morning to work out. About 60 per cent of Magic’s customers are female and a subset of those are mums — including Bhanot’s wife, who recently gave birth to their first baby. “It’s a perfect device for her because she can’t really get out of the house but she also wants to get into shape.”
The mirror costs a one-off £999, or £28 a month over three years — cheaper than many gym memberships. Plus, it doubles as homeware: it has a Habitat vibe and is less of an eyesore than my husband’s hulking exercise bike. You can have up to five accounts per household at no extra cost, although it keeps track of each person’s training (so no claiming credit for your partner’s punishing dawn HIIT session). An IRL personal trainer might charge £50-£100 an hour.
But when it comes to feeling the burn, a human definitely has the edge. I answered my mobile in the middle of a training session with Cook, leaving him frozen and none the wiser for 20 minutes. My PT would never put up with this.
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