Lanman, the longtime Mindbody and ClassPass CEO, spoke in the course of the ATN Innovation Summit in regards to the latest launch of guardian model Playlist, and about the way forward for AI in health and wellness
Fritz Lanman has a message for each health and wellness government: it is best to embrace synthetic intelligence with open arms, and also you shouldn’t fear that AI goes to switch people.
On the ATN Innovation Summit 2025, Lanman, who serves because the CEO of Playlist (guardian model for Mindbody, ClassPass and Booker), sat down for a one-on-one fireplace chat with Athletech Information founder and CEO Edward Hertzman.
Throughout the chat, Lanman mentioned the choice to create Playlist as a unified parent brand, whereas giving his candid ideas on the way forward for AI in health and wellness. He additionally took a while to defend ClassPass, the extremely in style however typically maligned class-booking platform.
Contained in the Launch of ‘Playlist‘
Lanman mentioned Playlist was created partly as a result of it was a “mouthful” for shoppers to should confer with Mindbody, ClassPass and Booker when speaking about your entire firm. However greater than that, the transfer displays the corporate’s want to maneuver past simply health and wellness and into the broader world of in-person experiences.
Describing social media platforms as “fashionable cigarette” corporations on account of their talents to maintain folks glued to their telephones, Lanman mentioned Playlist’s software program is supposed to do the alternative – empower companies that assist folks get out into the actual world. That features gyms and studios, however it goes deeper than that.
“What we’re actually about is about getting you out of your screens and into the actual world,” he mentioned. “Playlist displays this. We’re making an attempt to assist in giving you a ‘playlist’ for in-real-life, native experiences … that’s going that will help you change into the healthiest, most impressed model of your self.”
Health Manufacturers Ought to Embrace AI, Not Be Fearful
Lanman, who beforehand served as an government at Microsoft and personally invests in round 150 tech startups, needs to see the health and wellness business lean totally into the period of AI. He additionally needs the business’s stakeholders to recover from any fears that synthetic intelligence will make people out of date.
“I feel it’s necessary for this business to listen to, from a tech individual, … that we’re not going to get replaced by AI,” Lanman mentioned.
Lanman believes the present wave of AI innovation being led by corporations like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic is “actually superb, however it’s not going to totally change people.”
“What it will do is empower and democratize the power to do actually deep and unimaginable analytics, actually nice personalised advertising and marketing and issues like that to assist companies … develop and be simpler. So I see us heading towards an age of human augmentation, not substitution,” he mentioned.
Whereas Lanman believes that it’s the job of tech suppliers like Mindbody and ClassPass to offer health manufacturers easy-to-use synthetic intelligence instruments to assist develop their companies, he additionally believes health club and studio operators should take some duty for turning into proficient with AI.
“It’s incumbent on operators to make use of these instruments,” he mentioned. “If you happen to’re not utilizing ChatGPT already, you’re behind the sport.”
The Case for ClassPass
Lanman, who has served because the CEO of ClassPass since 2017, additionally addressed among the frequent complaints studio homeowners have expressed with the favored class-booking platform. These complaints, he argued, stem from a elementary misunderstanding about what ClassPass is designed to do, and the way it’s designed for use by companies.
In accordance with Lanman, ClassPass is designed to help studios fill excess capacity – these previous couple of seats they wouldn’t have been in a position to fill with out the platform. It shouldn’t be the first means studio homeowners search to fill the vast majority of their class spots.
In consequence, ClassPass in all probability received’t flip a struggling boutique health studio right into a profitable one, however it may well assist strong companies change into even higher by maximizing income.
“I feel the 2 largest misconceptions can be, one: (ClassPass) can’t save a enterprise that’s not going to work by itself, and two: you shouldn’t use it primarily for lead technology, it is best to use it for extra capability liquidation,” Lanman mentioned.
This text relies on a dwell dialogue held in the course of the ATN Innovation Summit 2025, a two-day occasion devoted to the way forward for health and wellness. See here for Extra Innovation Summit protection.
