Under Armour's Partnership With IBM Could Revive Both Brands

Under Armour Inc UA and International Business Machines Corp. IBM are teaming up to bridge technology and athletics in order to create what they believe will be one of the most comprehensive health and fitness tracking programs.

Both companies are working to secure their places in two very different industries, but the partnership could be a great way for the two to set themselves apart from competitors.

New Health And Fitness Tracking App: Record

Record is the name of a new health and fitness tracking app designed by Under Armour and IBM. The app will be capable of collecting users' data including sleep, workouts, everyday activity and nutrition using everything from smartwatches, other apps and fitness tracking bands.

Once the data has been inputted, IBM's supercomputer Watson takes over. Not only will the app be able to show people how their fitness metrics compare to the general public's stats, but it will also identify trends and use Artificial Intelligence to vary workouts depending on things like the weather.

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The Biggest Change

At first glance, Record may sound just like every other fitness app on the market— promising to deliver customized workout plans and evaluate progress as the user goes along.

However, the game changer for Record is the way it tracks food intake. So far, no firm has been able to streamline the cumbersome problem of logging nutrition data for every meal, but IBM and Under Armour say they have the answer.

Watson's Visual Recognition and Discovery technology will make the app capable of recognizing food simply by seeing a picture of it.

Exposure

Under Armour's decision to work with IBM has made its fitness app stand apart from the rest of the field, as it claims to be one of the smartest apps on the market.

For IBM, the benefit is being able to showcase and use its supercomputer Watson. Watson is a major part of IBM's future strategy, and using the computer only makes it smarter, so partnerships like this one are important in making Watson more useful for the future.