Google’s taking a big swing at AI health with the Fitbit Air

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Gadgets GadgetsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Gadgets AI AIPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All AI News NewsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All NewsGoogle’s taking a big swing at AI health with the Fitbit AirGoogle kicks off a new era with its first Fitbit tracker in four years, an app rebrand, and its AI coach leaving beta. Google kicks off a new era with its first Fitbit tracker in four years, an app rebrand, and its AI coach leaving beta. by Victoria Song Victoria SongSenior Reviewer, Wearable TechPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All by Victoria SongMay 7, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC The Fitbit Air can be preordered today and will be available starting May 26th. Image: Google Victoria Song Victoria SongPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Victoria Song is a senior reporter and author of the Optimizer newsletter.

She has more than 13 years of experience reporting on wearables, health tech, and more. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine. That was my first thought when I saw the new $99 Google Fitbit Air.

You can hardly blame me. The band is screenless with a metallic fabric clasp. My eyes flickered between the Fitbit Air and my wrist, where I’m wearing a Whoop MG.

Industry Implications

Was I not seeing double? But as my press briefing went on, my opinion started changing. The Air is sort of like the OG Fitbits that Whoop then duped once Fitbit went all in on smartwatches.

Think back to 2012, when the Fitbit One could clip to your pants, be turned into a pendant, or dangle from a keychain. That device was mostly a pedometer, whereas the Air is more of a modern, modular sensor that can be popped out of one band and stuck into one of three others. But in many ways, this feels like a return to Fitbit’s roots — a simple band for casual tracking.

“The reality is right now, wearables have made huge advancements, but for a lot of people, they’re still either too complicated, too bulky, or too expensive,” Rishi Chandra, Google’s vice president of Health and Home, tells The Verge. “That’s where the Fitbit Air came in. We wanted something you could give to your kids and parents that they could just put on their arms.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.