Google’s new Open Knowledge Format could help AI understand how businesses operate. Here’s why gym owners should pay attention.
Imagine asking AI why your gym’s revenue dropped last month. It can see your financial reports, but it doesn’t know how your memberships work, what you charge for personal training, or how you handle membership holds. You’d have to explain all of that before it could give you a useful answer. Now imagine if AI already had that information. It would know how your gym operated, understand your services, and use that knowledge to help you make decisions.
That’s the idea behind Google’s new Open Knowledge Format (OKF), introduced in June 2026.
What is OKF, and why does it matter?
Think about how much information you have scattered across your business. Your membership data lives in your gym management software. Your leads are in your CRM. Your staff policies might be in Google Docs, and half your operating procedures probably live in your head. Even if AI could access all those systems, it would still need someone to explain how everything works.
OKF is Google’s proposed solution to that problem. Think of it as an organized instruction manual for your business that different AI tools can read. Instead of giving AI a giant folder full of documents, you organize information into smaller files. One might explain your membership policies, another might describe your training programs, and another could explain how you calculate member retention.
Google calls a collection of these files a knowledge bundle. The files can link to each other, helping AI understand how different parts of your business fit together. The clever part is that OKF uses simple text files rather than requiring expensive or specialized software. It’s an open format, which means different AI tools could potentially use the same information.
You can read more about how it works in Google’s OKF documentation.
What could AI do with this information?
Let’s say you notice your personal training revenue has dropped. You ask an AI assistant to investigate. If it has secure access to your gym management software, it might be able to see that you’ve sold fewer personal training packages. But if it also understands your pricing, how your packages work, and when unused sessions expire, it has more information to help you figure out what happened.
The same idea applies to your staff. Imagine a new coach asking your gym’s AI assistant how to handle a late cancellation. Instead of messaging you, they could get an answer based on your actual gym policies. If you change that policy, an AI agent could potentially help update your staff documents and flag other places where the old policy is mentioned.
An AI agent is simply an AI assistant that can take action. Instead of telling you how to update a document, for example, it could make the changes itself if you’ve given it permission. This is similar to an idea AI researcher Andrej Karpathy describes in his LLM Wiki.
Imagine having a staff handbook that AI helps organize, update, and maintain as your business changes. Of course, OKF alone can’t do any of these things. AI would still need secure access to your software and permission to complete tasks. OKF would help it understand the information it’s working with.
Could this change how people find your gym online?
Potentially, and this is where things get interesting for your website. Imagine someone asking ChatGPT to find a gym nearby that offers semi-private strength training, has experienced coaches, and works with complete beginners. An AI assistant needs to understand your services before it can identify your gym as a possible match.
In the future, businesses might use OKF to organize public information about their services, coaches, and programs so AI agents can understand it more easily.
Google hasn’t announced that OKF will influence search rankings or that websites need it to appear in AI-generated answers. Its current purpose is to help AI agents organize and share information. For now, making sure your website clearly explains who you serve, what you offer, and where you’re located is still an important place to start.
What should gym owners do now?
You don’t need to start building an OKF knowledge bundle tomorrow. The technology is still developing, and there’s plenty you can do without touching a single technical file.
Start by looking at how well your business information is organized. Are your membership policies written down? Does your team know where to find important procedures? Do you have consistent definitions for metrics like retention and average revenue per member? Think about how much you’d need to explain to a new employee before they could confidently handle your gym’s daily operations. That’s a pretty good indication of how much information an AI assistant would need, too.
And take another look at your website. Does it clearly explain your services, introduce your coaches, and answer the questions prospective members regularly ask? As AI becomes more involved in how people research businesses and complete everyday tasks, having accurate, organized information will become increasingly useful.
Your gym’s website needs to keep up with AI
At Kilo, we build AI-ready websites specifically for coaching gyms. We use modern SEO practices and structured data to help search engines better understand your business, your services, and the people you serve. As AI continues to change how prospective members find gyms, we’re keeping up with the technology so your website can, too.
Ready to make your gym easier to find?
