AI in Your Living Room: Peloton’s Sanjay Nichani

**Sam Ransbotham** (0:02)
Many people have already invited artificial intelligence into their homes with voice assistants like Siri and Alexa. But how can we individually benefit from computer vision? Today, we talk with Sanjay Nichani, Vice President of AI and Computer Vision at Peloton Interactive about a new product that incorporates AI for fitness coaching.
Welcome to Me, Myself, and AI, a podcast on artificial intelligence in business. Each episode, we introduce you to someone innovating with AI. I'm Sam Ransbotham, professor of information systems at Boston College. I'm also the guest editor for the AI and Business Strategy Big Idea Program at MIT Sloan Management Review.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (0:41)
And I'm Shervin Khodabandeh, senior partner with BCG, and I co-lead BCG's AI practice in North America. And together, MIT SMR and BCG have been researching AI for five years, interviewing hundreds of practitioners and surveying thousands of companies on what it takes to build and to deploy and scale AI capabilities across the organization and really transform the way organizations operate.

**Sam Ransbotham** (1:09)
Today, Shervin and I are talking with Sanjay Nichani, Vice President, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision at Peloton Interactive. Sanjay, thanks for joining us, welcome.

**Sanjay Nichani** (1:17)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.

**Sam Ransbotham** (1:19)
Can you tell us about your current role at Peloton?

**Sanjay Nichani** (1:22)
I lead the AI and Computer Vision team at Peloton. Peloton's mission is to use technology and design to connect the world to fitness, empowering people to be the best version of themselves anywhere and anytime.
Most people recognize this via our bikes and treads that we sell. We have world-class instructors that teach some really awesome content related to cardio and strength and yoga and meditation. And this gets streamed not only to your bike's treads, but also onto your digital apps, whether it's iPhone or Android, and also is available on TV as an app. You're here to make people happy and healthy and change their lives.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:03)
Tell us a bit about your education and background. I know you studied at Babson, which is down the street from us at MIT and Cambridge, actually.
Take us on your path to get to Peloton and what got you interested in artificial intelligence?

**Sanjay Nichani** (2:15)
I would say that my career is sort of divided into four phases. The first one was more around using computer vision for manufacturing and factory automation.
And then my second phase was more around security and access control. So that's where a lot of 3D computer vision applications are used for finding people in revolving doors and retail stores and so on. And then I did a little bit of a stint in identity verification and document forensics. So now I'm in my fourth stint working in the fitness space, which I'm really excited about. With all this experience I've had in computer vision over the years, just bringing into this space is exciting.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:53)
I think we all are obviously, as you said, very familiar with Peloton and the bike.
What other things are going on that we may not be aware of? What kinds of uses of artificial intelligence are you using there that maybe we can't see?

**Sanjay Nichani** (3:05)
Peloton Guide, this was something that we recently announced. This is our first strength product. And it's also the first that uses AI technology that actually runs on a physical device in the form of a platform. We're quite excited about it.
It basically connects to any TV to transform that TV into sort of a interactive personal training studio. Peloton instructors lead a wide range of fun classes, but quite intense that actually use dumbbells and body weights. And so where we bring computer vision technology and AI in there is we have something called the movement tracker, which allows you to track members, allows you to recognize that activity, so that as you follow along the instructors to make sure that they're actually completing these moves as you go through the class.
And this real-time feedback and metric-driven accountability is very appealing to our members because now they have a goal to work to, especially when you don't have a coach at home.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (4:02)
And that's a device that they put in the room.

**Sanjay Nichani** (4:05)
Exactly, yeah.
It connects to your TV. The other really nice thing about the device is that it has what is called smart frame technology. It basically gives you the freedom to go around the room and it automatically pans and zooms where you are. And then you can see yourself on TV, so you're reflected on TV so that you can see your form. Really excited about this product because a lot of the technology is all the way from finding people and figuring out what activity they're doing. All that is driven by computer vision.