The Oura Ring is getting a new AI-powered feature called Oura Advisor, and while the feature is interesting, the timing of its announcement is just as noteworthy. Oura Advisor is described as a “personalized wellness coach in the palm of your hand,” separating it slightly from other similar features, as it doesn’t focus solely on exercise, but your lifestyle as well.
Oura Advisor is launching as an Oura Labs feature in the app, signaling that it’s essentially in beta, as the Labs section is for Ring wearers to try out new features described as experimental. It’s noted in the Labs section that features will only potentially be added to the main app in the future, so this may be your only opportunity to use Oura Advisor, along with current Labs features such as the Symptom Checker.
What does Oura Advisor do? You set your personal goals, such as health or lifestyle changes, and select the tone you want the Advisor to take when it chats with you — supportive, goal-orientated, or as a mentor. It will deliver recommendations based on the data collected by the Oura Ring.
The AI assistant is interactive, and you can ask it questions. It will also send notifications based on your goals, which can be configured to happen daily, weekly, or somewhere in between. Oura states that the Advisor will learn from you and will take injuries or preferences into account when it suggests activities and guidance.
Exactly how in-depth the advice or guidance the Advisor will give is not clear at the moment, nor is how much information you will need to give it in order for this to be truly personalized, outside of it monitoring data from the Ring. Oura does mention that information stored by Advisor, which may influence results, can be removed, so it won’t always consider an injury that has since healed, for example.
Oura’s announcement of Oura Advisor comes a day before Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy Ring, its own smart ring and a direct competitor to the Oura Ring. Samsung has integrated AI into its smartphones already, and is likely to add AI-powered features to its Samsung Health platform soon. Oura also competes with the Ultrahuman Ring Air and the Circular Ring Slim, which have AI assistants or provide AI-powered advice in their respective apps. The Oura Advisor feature should be in the Oura Labs section, under the main menu, in the Oura Ring app now.