Users" health data has always been a precious resource for tech companies. And they’re constantly coming up with new ways to acquire it. The most recent trend across the industry has been to allow users to hand over their health records to AI for personalized recommendations. Anthropic is already doing this with Claude Health, and now Google is catching up with newly announced updates for its Fitbit health coach.
Google recently held its annual health event, The Check Up, where it revealed its plans to roll out support for Fitbit’s integration with users" personal medical records. Starting next month, for users in the United States, the Fitbit app will allow you to link your complete medical background. Doing this provides users with “a fuller picture of [their] health, including [their] lab results, medications and visit history, all in one place and under [their] control.”
This data will be fed directly to the Fitbit personal health coach, which is a Gemini-powered AI assistant integrated into the Fitbit app. Once you link your medical data to Fitbit, you can ask it questions like “How can I improve my cholesterol?” The coach can also give you health summaries, recommendations, and more.
To make this possible, Google is partnering with third-party services like b. well and CLEAR. To link your health data to Fitbit, you can search for your healthcare provider and link to your profile. Since medical data is sensitive information, integrating it into Fitbit will require users to also provide an ID and a selfie. Essentially, if you want to chat with the Fitbit coach about your health, you’ll have to give Google insight into your entire identity.
Besides this integration, Google is also introducing some much-needed accuracy improvements for basic wellness tracking. It updated Fitbit"s sleep tracking models so the app can better tell if you are actually sleeping or just lying awake. Additionally, for users concerned about metabolic health, the platform is adding direct support for continuous glucose monitors through Health Connect.
Google is rolling out these changes for Public Preview users starting next month. You can check out the full announcement post on Google’s blog.