FWIW the 2nd part of Nate’s comment, regarding “absolute levels”, sounds like they’re seeking to try to productise the stuff Nate briefly posted about a month ago in this Beta-thread post:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/trainerroad-ai-beta-testing/107104/474
Looks interesting should they figure it out…. 
I’m quite skeptical a model that doesn’t know what zones are as things stand currently
Oh yes…. two post after that he told me my FTP was gonna go up from 324w to 342w and bring my threshold down to 2.5 so I spat my dummy out 
After that - and a few other notable complaints - there was a tweek and the big FTP increases were nerfed a bit.
I think they can pull a few levers behind the scenes and pull this in for us.
So far, my FTP and predicted increase (marginal) are where I’d expect for where I’m at in my training, so I don’t have the same current issues as this group but have been reading this thread because I agree with a lot of the takes, and it’s been a constructive discussion about the release. I’m also wary that just because it’s working out for me now doesn’t mean that it will in the future.
That said, this piece is huge and is definitely something that came up in the Beta thread. Multiple people suggested communication needed to be clear and thorough because this was going to be a big change for people. And I have to say, the communication since this went live beyond the Beta has been pretty minimal and somewhat disappointing compared to what I’ve come to expect from TR over the years. There’s been a lot of needlessly inflammatory posts worth ignoring, but there have also been a lot of respectful and constructive criticism and question posts that seem to be going unaddressed publicly. I know TR always strives for continued improvement, so I believe they’ll continue to refine this new update that does bring some really cool features to the table despite the FTP concerns, but the communication around this release is a bummer, frankly.
It looks like you nailed it!
Only rated as “Hard,” too?
It seems like things are working out for you! 
This should give you good confidence for your workouts this week.
Will they be hard? Probably, but if you can get through them it tells a good story about where your fitness is actually at.
You’ve got two easier days between today and Saturday’s hard workouts, so focus on recovery and nutrition and I’d bet that you’ve got this in the bag.
Try being confident about this! You’ve shown over the past week that you can do these workouts..
Thanks for dropping into our support group @eddie
But being able to do the workouts is only half the story here.
Most of us have gained plenty of confidence that the AI is picking workouts we can do and that the predicted RPE is spot on - but the concern regarding the workout venturing into the wrong zones because of inflated FTPs still stands.
I’m similar as you following here. And I am all for better communication or handling the edge cases because if I were in the shoes of those, I’d feel pretty puzzled. And the beta threat Nate recorded some quick videos that helped to clear things out and I wish something like that would happen here, but I’m not sure if all the cases are to explain or if at some point you have to admit that the model has some flaws for a minority of athletes and that this will be ironed out in the future and to manually set the lower FTP as a quick fix or whatever helps.
In either case, I hope for open and visible communication from TR and not silence again. Especially for those athletes of which many seem to have a long history of training and a good understanding of their capabilities.
I really like the new TR system (even if I manually set my things up because I don’t feel that triathlon is well enough supported out of the box) and it will get only better from here but those cases here really get me thinking… from an outside perspective it looks as if these athletes were at a good point to further increase threshold levels along the classic training principles and classic training plans…but now maybe the AI is correct and you really need a level decrease with shorter more intense intervals… but somehow I have my doubts because this all seems to go against the classic season training structure as shown here for example in the WKO series about annual training concepts ( WKO5 Annual Part 1 Plan: Early Base Development , WKO5 Annual Planning Part 2: Mid to Late Base , WKO5 Annual Planning Part 3: Late Base to Peak )
So if I understand correctly, you think that the threshold workouts you’re doing are actually in your VO2 Max power zone, etc.?
If the workouts are doable and the RPE is spot on, how could the intervals be in the wrong zones?
Honestly, I don’t understand.. 
Presumably because if the workout was tagged as threshold, then that is what it would be.
Speaking for myself, and with the caveat that I’m only just now getting started with the new AI update (and plan to give it a fair long-term shot), my concern would be that I’m accumulating too much fatigue in sweetspot sessions that are really more like threshold sessions. Even if I can hang, the muscles may be too sore for the next session.
My initial plan looks ok, as I said in another comment, assuming I am able to recover well enough, but the sweet spot sessions are a fair bit harder than what I have done recently and approach my practical threshold power based on recent training.
I guess it’s a matter of what the training philosophy is, and if I should decouple my expectations from prior understanding of what sweet spot is.
The threshold sessions do become quite scary…
Everybody is talking about their zones being off. So I looked all over the TrainerRoad apps and I cannot find anywhere that shows my zones. I adjusted my FTP on my Garmin and on Training Peaks to what the TR AIFTP changed to last week. I used the WKO 5 Classic Power Zones and my workouts so far seem right on. But there are many ways to establish zones. What is everyone else doing and what is Trainer Road doing?
Here’s what we use:
Active Recovery - (<55%FTP)
Endurance - (55% - 75% FTP)
Tempo - (76% - 87% FTP)
Sweet Spot - (88% - 94% FTP)
Threshold - (95% - 105% FTP)
VO2 Max - (106% - 120% FTP)
Anaerobic Capacity - (>120% FTP)
Pulled from this Help Center article by the way.
I do think that if you’re able to complete a level 3+ threshold workout, then your FTP is not set too high.
If your sweet spot workouts are feeling tough, then yeah, maybe you need to recalibrate to what sweet spot feels like OR maybe you’re just struggling with that type of work at this point in your training. Mark those workouts as they feel in the post-workout surveys and we’ll make adjustments.
Each training zone has it’s own level based on your performance, and it’s okay for one to be higher than the other.
If everything is far too difficult across the board and you’re failing workouts, then that sounds like an issue, but otherwise, keep doing the work and answering the surveys honestly.
If you aren’t able to recover between hard sessions, I’d recommend putting more time between workouts, checking in on your nutrition & recovery practices, or switching to a masters plan to ensure that you can knock out those key sessions with quality.
Thanks. I could not find that anywhere!
I’m now in recovery/endurance week, but I completed King Peak +2 on Saturday 24th, I rated it hard.
Warlow -2 Threshold 3.5, Saturday 7th Feb, so the day after my aiFTPPre.
So basically I should change the training that improved my FTP by 40 watts last year entirely to accommodate the new model. That doesn’t sound right. And you haven’t addressed the issue of OUs not serving their purpose. If hyperventilation is my limiter there because I have VO2 overs instead of suprathreshold, the workout is not the right workout for me. AI has all my training history. What more? I don’t have time for failed workouts to give the algo even more info. And I really don’t think that denial is the right way for TR to go here.
I’d be happy to look into your case!
It looks like you manually changed your FTP to 345 on the 8th, and then 353 on the 18th.
We then gave you a new FTP of 366 with our updated tool on the 20th.
You rated a level 7.2 Sweet Spot workout as “Moderate,” and a level 4.7 Threshold as “Hard” with that 345 FTP, so it seemed like your FTP was slightly low then.
Afterward, you rated a level 5.2 Sweet Spot workout as Hard with that 366 FTP.
Everything seemed fine at that point, but then you struggled with a level 2.9 threshold workout on Sunday. Now the question is, was that just a bad day for you, or was it extra hard for some reason?
Given your survey responses for those earlier workouts, it seems like you should be able to do a level 2.9 threshold workout with this new FTP.
I’d be curious to see how your workout goes tomorrow, but if you think your FTP is certainly too high, you could try splitting the difference with an FTP of 355.
Based on what I’m seeing, I think your FTP is close. You’ve got a lot of activities on your calendar, and sometimes you perform really well, and other times not so much, so it’s hard to say here, but I do think we can learn something if we work together on figuring things out. 
Let me know your thoughts.
For long time we have taught the stubborn “every workout needs to be hard” users here in the forum that sweet spot should NOT feel pretty hard because you risk burn out and it’s better to progress TIZ and also because there is the threshold zone above sweet spot which is the zone for “pretty hard”.
And then TR put the workout levels and the RPE feedback mechanism in place which also helped a lot with this.
Now with AI and the normalization around threshold level 3 … feels like we’re back to Square 1.
I think it would be a lot of help to see the 20/40/60 minute estimates to get a better understanding and to normalize around threshold level 5 (or even better: an individually set level).
But the discussions are beginning to tire me out and I think I will take a step back and look from the sideline if TR will it get through with the “trust the AI” messaging or I finally some changes will happen.
I understand where you are coming from but, especially for over-unders, the level 3 workouts that the AI thinks are doable have extremely short intervals padded out with endurance either side.
I’ll admit that I’m fighting the cause for others a little bit - like I’ve stated above - my personal workouts have just about stayed in zone even though I think my FTP is too high
