Verily app promises free health advice in exchange for your data

At HLTH USA 2025, Alphabet’s life sciences arm Verily unveiled “Verily Me,” a free health app that promises to pull together users’ fragmented medical records and deliver clinician-reviewed wellness guidance — a bold bid to win consumer trust in a market where Big Tech has repeatedly stumbled.

With the launch, Verily is making its most direct move yet into consumer health, positioning itself not just as a digital health vendor but as a data broker in the emerging real-world evidence economy. The company is betting that users will share their personal health data in exchange for tailored insights — and that they’ll trust Verily to handle it better than Google once did.

Verily, spun out of Google’s “X” division in 2015, has long floated between blue-sky device development, clinical studies, and data platform ambitions. Its portfolio once included a retinal camera, devices for glucose monitoring, and a “study watch” for clinical trials. But in recent years, the company has pared back its hardware bets and refocused on software, AI, and data infrastructure.

Verily Me is the latest manifestation of that pivot: a free app inviting users to pull together medical records from various providers, let clinicians review them, and receive personalized health suggestions. The company also positions the app as a gateway into a registry called Lifelong Health Study, which could feed anonymized data into research and commercial partnerships.

In effect, Verily is trying to convert patient data — long trapped in siloed hospital systems — into an asset it can lean on for predictive models, real-world evidence, and potentially monetizable datasets.

How Verily Me works (and what it isn’t)

Verily describes the app’s value proposition as simple: one login, one place to view your health history, and a “clinical review” that yields preventative and wellness recommendations. The app includes an AI assistant named Violet to answer general health and wellness inquiries. Users can also log meals by snapping photos, and the app integrates with Lightpath, Verily’s virtual care program for users enrolled through employers or insurers.

Importantly, the company says the app is not a medical device and is not intended for real-time monitoring or as a replacement for standard care. It’s a supplemental layer: clinicians review each user’s history, provide suggestions, and users can opt to enroll in research studies through Lifelong.

Verily emphasizes “health care–grade privacy and security” and says the platform is built with user consent and control in mind. Still, it faces inevitable skepticism given its parentage under Alphabet and the sensitive nature of health data. Verily must walk a tightrope — offering value without reviving concerns that Big Tech is mining patient information for profit.

Trust concerns

Verily is not entering uncharted territory. The idea of a consumer-centric health aggregator is one Google itself once attempted with Google Health, which allowed users to consolidate medical records from multiple providers before being shut down in 2012. More recently, Apple and Microsoft have made similar pushes into health record integration, care recommendations, and patient engagement.

Yet consumer expectations remain both high and skeptical. A 2025 Harris Poll Study shows that Americans want tailored health recommendations, easier access to medical records, and streamlined digital experiences. At the same time, most say they’re reluctant to share personal data with large tech companies unless they feel in control of how that data is used.

Many health apps stumble — not for lack of ambition, but for usability, privacy, and integration issues. Reviews of eHealth applications consistently flag problems around reliability, access, and user experience, stressing that strong clinical value must be paired with intuitive design and transparent governance. Trust, not novelty, remains the currency that determines whether these platforms succeed.