Oura is acquiring medical AI chatbot startup Counsel Health

is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.

Oura announced its quarterly earnings today and said it agreed to acquire Counsel Health for $625 million, after adding the company’s AI chatbot to its app earlier this year. Counsel Health calls itself an “AI-native primary care company,” using the app to deliver AI-generated responses and insights based on users’ health data reported from their wearables that can then proceed to a conversation with one of its in-house physicians.

Oura says it expects the deal to close before the end of the year.

Oura CEO Tom Hale said in an interview with Bloomberg that the acquisition is part of a plan to connect wearables, clinical AI, and access to doctors based on insights from biometric data to answer questions or monitor ongoing conditions. Counsel Health’s AI chatbot can connect Oura users to a real doctor directly from the app and draw on users’ biometric data from their wearables in its answers to medical questions. The plan they describe in the press release is to focus on three areas, including preventative care, acute care for episodic health concerns, and specialty and chronic care for things like reproductive and cardiometabolic health.

According to Bloomberg, Counsel Health’s CEO Muthu Alagappan says it’s also planning to expand its network of on-demand physicians, which is currently “made up of about 50 people.” Counsel’s 70 employees will join Oura as part of the deal, with Alagappan becoming Oura’s chief clinical AI officer. Oura says in its announcement that Counsel will also continue offering its medical AI platform outside of Oura’s user base through new and existing enterprise partners, including “health plans, health systems, consumer health organizations, and employers.”

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