Strava Unveils AI-Powered Route Upgrades & Tougher Leaderboard Protections

Strava, the dominant social platform for athletes, is rolling out a significant wave of updates designed to make workout planning more intuitive and ensure its renowned leaderboards remain a fair playing field. Building on artificial intelligence (AI) features introduced last year, these enhancements, which will become available over the coming weeks and months, focus on optimizing route suggestions and tackling suspicious leaderboard entries.

AI-Powered Route Enhancements for Subscribers

Strava subscribers (with plans starting at $11.99 monthly) will gain access to a revamped AI-powered routes experience directly within the Maps tab. This system aims to provide more intelligent suggestions by drawing on data from Strava's popular heatmaps feature, highlighting routes favored by the wider community. Users can generate these community-backed routes from custom starting points or their current location, making it easier to discover optimal paths for their workouts.

The innovation in route planning doesn't stop there. Strava has announced further mobile app updates slated for the coming months. Starting in June 2025, the tappable Points of Interest (POI) feature – which currently helps users find cafés, restrooms, and viewpoints – will become more robust. POIs will soon display crucial information like elevation, distance, and estimated arrival time, and users will even be able to upload photos of these locations. Following this, July 2025 will see the launch of point-to-point routing. According to Strava, this feature will utilize heatmaps and machine learning to deliver "the most efficient, activity-specific route from A to B."

Beyond route planning, subscribers will also benefit from a doubling in the number of live segments, which allow for real-time performance tracking and achievement notifications on sections of a route, alongside the introduction of additional data screens.

Upholding Fair Competition with Advanced Leaderboard Integrity

A key focus of the new updates is the continued effort to maintain fairness on Strava's leaderboards. The company stated it is “continuing to advance” its AI-powered Leaderboard Integrity feature. This system is designed to automatically detect and challenge suspicious activity logs that could unfairly skew rankings. Strava reports that this technology has already led to the removal of 4.45 million activity logs. These removals typically involve activities flagged for incorrect sport type (e.g., a bike ride logged as a run) or those recorded in vehicles, including e-bikes improperly categorized, which can easily lead to fabricated high scores.

Key Takeaways for Strava Users:

• Smarter Route Planning: AI-driven route suggestions based on community data are now available for subscribers, with enhanced POI features (June) and efficient point-to-point routing (July) coming soon.
• Richer In-Activity Data: Subscribers will see more live segments and additional data screens.
• Fairer Leaderboards: Strava is bolstering its AI tools to detect and remove inaccurate or illegitimate activities, with 4.45 million already removed.
• Phased Rollout: Some updates are available now, with others scheduled for June and July 2025.

These updates underscore Strava's commitment to leveraging technology to improve user experience, from discovering the best local routes to ensuring that achievements are earned and recognized fairly within its global community.