AI Coach — How It Works and How to Use It

MotionEdge's AI Coach is the layer that takes everything the app sees — your video, your pose data, your tempo, hand path, TrackMan radar numbers, Watch metrics — and turns it into the kind of explanation a knowledgeable friend at the range would give you. It uses Claude or Grok behind the scenes (you can pick), it has access to the full context of your swing, and it converses with you the same way you'd talk to a coach.

The honest framing: it's a powerful second opinion, not a replacement for a great instructor in person. But it sees more measurements per swing than any coach can, and it remembers every swing you've ever taken. That combination is genuinely useful.

Where AI Coach lives in the app

There are two surfaces. They look different but they're the same engine underneath:

The conversations sync between the two — start a question in the panel while reviewing a swing, continue it in the AI Coach tab later that night. Same history, same context.

What the AI Coach actually sees

When you ask a question, MotionEdge sends the AI provider a curated payload — not just your video. Depending on what's available on the swing(s) in question, that includes:

• Frames from your swing video — typically the filmstrip's 10 key positions (address, top, impact, etc.). Not the full video, just the moments that matter.
• Pose landmarks — joint positions per frame, computed on your device by the pose engine. Lets the AI talk about your hip position, shoulder rotation, spine angle, etc., not just "what the video shows."
• Measured metrics — tempo ratio, hand path grade, peak hand speed, release quality, spine tilt, kinematic sequence score, and the rest.
• TrackMan radar data — when present, ball speed, launch angle, club path, face angle, spin, the full set.
• Apple Watch data — when present, hand speed, tempo, release metrics from the IMU.
• Your training profile — if you've set one up, the AI knows what you're working on (e.g., "shallow the transition") and frames feedback accordingly.
• Your swing history — recent swings and what was said about them, so the AI doesn't repeat itself or contradict prior coaching cues.

The more data a swing has, the more specific the AI can be. A swing with just video gets fewer concrete numbers than a swing that also has TrackMan and Watch attached.

How to start an analysis

From the AI Coach tab

Tap the AI Coach tab in the bottom bar. The tab opens with your conversation history and a text input at the bottom. Type a question, optionally tap the swing/swings you want it to consider, and send. The AI responds inline in the conversation.

From inside Video Review

Open a swing. In the panel system at the top, switch any panel to AI Analysis. The panel shows the swing's current AI analysis (if one exists) plus a text input for follow-up questions. Asking from here is identical to asking from the tab — except the swing context is implicit (the AI knows you're looking at this specific swing).

Deep Analyze — the one-tap option

For a fresh, comprehensive analysis of a single swing, use Deep Analyze (a button in the AI Analysis panel and on the swing detail view). This sends a curated package — frames + pose + metrics + TrackMan + Watch + your training profile + recent-swing history — and asks the provider for a full critique. Takes a few seconds, costs an API call. Use it once per swing you genuinely care about, not as a per-swing default.

Provider choice — Claude or Grok

You can pick which AI provider answers your questions in Settings → AI Coach. Both are good. Anecdotally:

• Claude tends toward longer, more nuanced, more careful explanations. Great for "explain this concept to me" questions.
• Grok tends toward more direct, terser answers. Often better for "what's wrong with this swing — give me the one thing to fix."

There's no wrong answer. Try both on the same swing and use whichever style fits how you like coaching to land.

What to ask — questions that produce good answers

The AI Coach is genuinely useful when you ask specific, golf-language questions about a swing or a pattern across swings. Examples that work well:

• "Compare this swing to my session 10 days ago. What changed?"
• "Why is my hand path grading yellow on most of my recent driver swings?"
• "I'm trying to shallow my transition. What does my last 5 swings tell you about whether I'm getting closer?"
• "My club path on TrackMan is reading -3 degrees but my face is square. What's that doing to my ball flight?"
• "Compare this to a tour swing I imported. What's the biggest difference at P3?"

Questions that produce weaker answers (because they're too vague):

• "How's my swing?" → you'll get a generic answer
• "Make me a better golfer" → not specific enough to anchor in your actual data
• "Is this swing good?" → the AI doesn't know your goal

The trick: give the AI a frame of reference (compared to what? working on what? from which angle?). Better question = better answer.

What gets sent to the AI provider — privacy

When you ask a question, the curated payload (frames + pose data + metrics + radar) goes to the AI provider's API (Anthropic for Claude, xAI for Grok). The video frames are images, not the full video file. Pose data is numeric coordinates, not identifiable on its own.

A couple of things worth knowing:

• Your name and email are NOT sent. The provider sees anonymous swing data, not personally-identifying information. The conversation context is associated with you only inside MotionEdge.
• Frames are sent for the swing(s) you reference. If you ask "compare these two swings," frames for both go up. The AI doesn't have access to your other swings unless you reference them.
• The conversation history is stored on your device and syncs across your devices via iCloud (when iCloud is enabled). It's not stored in the AI provider's account.
• Each request is a one-shot. The AI doesn't retain memory of your previous conversations across requests — each question includes the relevant context fresh.

If you'd rather not send swing data to a cloud AI provider at all, simply don't use the AI Coach features — every other part of MotionEdge runs on-device with no network calls.

Cost and rate limits

Each AI Coach call costs us a small API fee (typically a few cents per response, more for the comprehensive Deep Analyze calls). For now, MotionEdge absorbs that cost — there's no per-call charge to you. We do rate-limit aggressive usage to protect against runaway API spend.

If you're using the AI Coach heavily, expect the limits to evolve as we figure out the right model for sustained heavy users (likely a small subscription tier or a credit pack for power users — the free experience continues for casual use).

The Tier 3 swing recap — what it is and why you might see it

After most AI analyses, MotionEdge automatically saves a swing recap — a few-line summary of what the AI said about that swing: the primary observation, the fault domain (if any), the cue the AI gave you, and whether the observation is transferable to similar swings.

You'll see recaps in:

• The swing's detail view (a section labelled "AI Coach notes")
• Quick scrubbing across recent swings — the recap shows up alongside metrics so you can scan-read what each swing's AI commentary said without re-running the analysis
• Future AI Coach conversations — the AI remembers what it told you, so it can build on prior feedback instead of repeating itself

Recaps are silent — they happen automatically; you don't need to opt in. If a swing has a recap, it shows. If not, it doesn't.

Best practices

• Run Deep Analyze on swings that matter — not every swing. Once per genuinely interesting swing.
• Reference specific things in your questions — a metric name, a swing position, a feel you're working on. The more anchor, the more specific the answer.
• Read the recap before asking a follow-up — if the AI already told you "your spine tilt loss is the priority," don't ask "what should I work on?" — ask the next-level question.
• Try both providers for the same question once. You'll learn which voice fits you.
• Use the AI Coach tab for project-level questions ("how is my swing change going?") and the panel for swing-specific drilling.

What the AI Coach is not

To set expectations honestly:

• It's not a real-time swing critic. It analyzes after capture, not during.
• It's not a substitute for an in-person instructor for fundamentals. A good coach watching you hit balls catches things no AI does — grip pressure, tension, the way your eyes move at address, the rhythm of your routine, whether you're cheating around back pain.
• It's not infallible. It can be wrong. Treat it like a second opinion you can engage with, not an oracle.
• It doesn't have memory between accounts. Your coach's AI session and your AI session are separate, even on shared swings.

Within those limits, it's the most consistently available "person at the range with a brain" you can have — and it has access to numbers no human can hold in their head.

See also: Live TrackMan Connection for radar data that improves AI answers. Apple Watch Overview for Watch sensor data the AI uses. Tempo Ratio and Hand Path Grading for two of the metrics the AI references most often.