LOL 
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I could be wrong, but I think the point he is trying to make is that if you can do 60 continuous minutes at (just grabbing a number) 200 watts, and your FTP is detected to be 210 watts, you should still be able to do 60 continuous minutes at the new 210 FTP. If you can’t, then the new FTP is not correct. I was just sticking with the 60 minute example. I think you could say the same for 4x12 or whatever too. So, if you up the FTP to 210, but then have to nerf the workout to 4x8 (instead of 4x12) to complete it, it seems the FTP is too high.
*I’m no expert here. Just explaining what I see as the possible disconnect.
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My only concern would be if the FTP is constantly going up and down a small number of watts, because we then have to go manually update Garmin, Strava, I.icu, TP, etc. I think you’ve addressed that by saying it would be smart enough to not do this.
leaving this for those who are sweating over many of their unstructured outdoor rides lol
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@Nate_Pearson you have the patience of a saint 
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What will happen if someone adds the existing plans - e.g., Traditional Base High Volume 1? Will they get this same option? Or will that only happen if you use Plan Builder?
Great news, and even better once unstructured rides count toward Progression Levels!
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That’s really only an issue if you’re thinking of FTP as something other than “the number that TR uses to scale my workouts by”. And, honestly I think that was more of a problem when people were getting “FTP” from the Ramp Test.
If you get through SSB and have a Threshold PL at 5.0 (which is about where 4x12 workouts are rated) and then ramp test at +5% FTP, if AT didn’t drop the next workout down to something a little easier like 4x8 or 5x8 then you’re going to struggle. Whether or not your “real FTP” is 200W or 210W doesn’t matter because you Ramped at 210 and that’s what TR says to use.
In the same scenario (and this is based on my brief time using AI-FTP) if your PL for Threshold is ~5.0 and you run FTP detection, it’s not going to give you much of an increase. Maybe 1%? Certainly not +5% like in the example. Start doing some of the 3x20 workouts that are PL >6 and then you might see some bigger jumps from AI-FTP. So in that case, AI-FTP is actually solving the problem from the original example.
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Sure! No reason to hide how much progress I have yet to make 
I bought a bike computer in January (happy new year!) but did not get a power meter until late April (happy birthday to me!), so I imagine that 3-4 months of rides without power data might have something to do with how it was thrown off by so much.
That said, I’ve read enough “AT is trying to kill me” or “why are my work outs so easy” threads to imagine it would be useful to let people manually check their FTP every now and again if things feel “off.” If AI is doing it’s job, it won’t matter, but it might build confidence in AI if those who are suspicious of the robot apocalypse at least have the ability double check it if they feel they need to.
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Agreed…but FTP has a definition, and it’s not “the number that TR uses to scale my workouts”. This goes back to the argument that it should probably not be called FTP in TR. For better or for worse, people have the Allen definition of FTP in their heads.
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My recollection of the original TR talking point for dropping PLs after FTP increase was “it feels harder, right? So we drop PLs to increase consistency and compliance” (or something like that) and is debatable but its TR’s plans and a coaching call.
Then at some point another talking point was the amount of work?
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My only consideration was that I’m confident it will take you more time to build, and I want TR to be magic for my FTP and I don’t want to “have to check”. I trust you are doing magic for my fitness and that you will learn when FTP should be increased sooner or later rather than be a static timespan.
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@Nate_Pearson You are a rockstar of customer support! Holy Crap, that was like podcast-level deep dive into our forum questions. I’m blown away right now.
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Been thinking. Here’s a scenario:
You get to the end of a build block and you can do a 3 × 20 Threshold workout at 100% FTP and rate it Hard. The FTP figure you’ve been using to benchmark your training with the last 3 weeks is 200 watts.
Is your FTP really 200 watts? Probably not, otherwise your 3 × 20 would have been at least Very Hard or more likely All Out, for most athletes, at least.
So, you start your next block and you either do a ramp test or AI FTP detection and you get a new figure of 215 watts.
If you now try to do 3 × 20 at 100% FTP, and either your ramp test or your AI FTP is accurate (whatever that means ) you’re REALLY going to struggle, and you MIGHT be able to do it, but it’ll likely be an All Out effort, and I’m not sure how you’re going to progress your threshold workouts for the next few weeks. You can’t have every workout as a 1 hour record attempt. Well, I can’t!
It seems to me that happens is that over a loading cycle, you enter with an actual FTP (ie what you can actually bring to the party) which is below the figure TR just gave you. Over the loading cycle as you gain fitness your actual FTP (same definition) grows (Up, Out or hopefully both) and by the end of the cycle your actual FTP is once again higher than that TR FTP. Then you retest or get an AI FTP estimate and go again.
So, I think we’re still wrestling with “when is FTP not FTP?” and “does that matter?” Personally, it doesn’t really matter to me, as long as I’m enjoying the training and getting fitter.
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Sounds like you are training for a 40k TT in that scenario, and you should change the story and color commentary. 
Isn’t it simply that the TTE at FTP is reduced. i.e. it’s not uncommon for people to improve in FTP and have a reduction in TTE, you wouldn’t expect someone to necessarily be able to go out and ride the same session if it’s a higher percentage of their TTE.
You’d expect people to be able to ramp up relatively quickly to the new FTP number and same TTE, but that will be individual and is somewhere AT can customise.
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I don’t know. It’s all relative. Say you do a long form test that was 40min at 330W and 60min 320W. You might have been working up to and completing 60min intervals at 320W, but 330W could still arguably be your FTP but a lower TTE and room to grow “out”.
Not necessarily. In this example you’re talking 3%, 97% is still a Threshold interval.
However I think the point is also, it’s not a switch. You don’t reach a test and one day you can do an extra 10W for all the same durations. Progressive overload either increase the Watts or increase the interval duration. As described above.
Perhaps the decrease needn’t be as big, but that depends on someone’s ability to endure a new Training Power. To say that there isn’t a need for a PL decrease doesn’t leave much margin for error. It’s a lot safer for the system to prescribe you a lower workout which is the same “amount of work”, than assume you can do the same workout at a higher output and have it kick your butt.
As athletes get more familiar with their abilities and the system they can more quickly dial up the appropriate level. My assumption is that as the system gets smarter it will also be able to pick up on individual trends as well as population ones @Nate_Pearson ?
ETA: Having re-read your post I think I agree with the second half of it 
.
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if you get sick, it probably makes you weaker. At that time, your potential is probably impacted and therefore your FTP for that day is almost definitely lower. The auto runs after every workout so as soon as you recovered from your illness, and perhaps rode a few days to get back up to speed, your FTP would self correct.
I assume TR is smarter than Garmin but the Garmin auto FTP also auto-ran after every workout and if you took a short break by riding in recovery for a few days, it would lower your FTP. That was annoying bc it suggested the device had no idea how hard you were actually trying. eg, the output may have been low but was it an incredibly low effort?
In the end tho, as soon as you ride to your potential again, it should all be back inline with your actual numbers.
I used my heart rate post surgery to estimate FTP. I guessed with a drop of 20% and that seemed right 4 weeks off the bike. I did 2 light weeks to start before I Ramp Tested. I then watched my HR response to rides of 1 hour or more to guess where FTP was based on % max HR and was able to see gains of 4, then 3% based on previous FTP being 100%. I did a ramp test after 2 weeks (when the surgeons cleared me to go hard) and was right at 13% down. I can see how you could do this with AI, so much so, I was toying with the idea of never needing another Ramp Test.