Function Health and Google announced a partnership on October 12 that will let US users feed their blood-test results directly into the Google Health app, pairing more than 160 lab biomarkers with data from wearables including the Pixel Watch 5 and Fitbit devices. The deal is part of a broader push by Google to turn its health ecosystem into a single destination for everything from heart-rate variability to cholesterol panels.
What the integration actually does
Later this fall, Function members in the US will be able to share lab results into the Google Health app, where the company’s AI coaching tools can draw on both lab chemistry and continuous wearable data. The pitch is context: a resting heart rate trend or a drop in sleep quality means something different when paired with a person’s fasting insulin, ApoB, or hs-CRP levels than it does on its own. Function’s panel also covers thyroid function, sex hormones, and nutrient levels, giving Google’s coaching layer a far wider set of inputs than step counts and sleep stages alone.
Why Google is building this now
The move follows Apple’s own September overhaul of its Health app, which added the ability to purchase lab tests covering more than 50 biomarkers directly through Quest Diagnostics — a direct shot at the same consumer habit Function has built its business around. Google’s answer is partnership rather than building lab-testing infrastructure itself: alongside the Function deal, the company separately announced a tie-up with women’s health app Flo Health, set to begin next year, suggesting a pattern of Google buying its way into specialized health verticals through data-sharing agreements rather than acquisitions.
The business logic for Function
For Function, which charges members for twice-yearly lab panels covering more than 160 biomarkers, the Google deal extends its reach into devices people already wear daily rather than requiring a separate app habit. The company has pursued a similar strategy before, striking a connection with Meta’s Muse personal AI agent that lets members link health data directly into that assistant. Each additional integration point makes Function’s lab data more sticky — once a user’s biomarkers are feeding multiple AI coaching tools, switching away from the service means losing that context across every connected platform.
What critics of the consumer-testing boom say
Not every voice in preventive medicine is enthusiastic about the direct-to-consumer lab testing wave that companies like Function have helped popularize. Physician groups have raised concerns that frequent biomarker testing without clinical context can drive unnecessary anxiety and follow-up procedures for borderline results that would otherwise be monitored rather than acted on. There’s also a data-privacy dimension specific to this deal: combining lab results, wearable data, and AI coaching under one tech company’s roof concentrates an unusually complete health profile in a single corporate ecosystem, raising the stakes on how that data is secured and whether it could ever be used for purposes beyond coaching.
What’s next
The integration is expected to go live for US users later this fall, with Google and Function both declining to specify an exact date. The real test will be whether the combined data actually changes coaching recommendations in ways users notice — Google’s AI coaching features remain in early stages industry-wide, and pairing them with richer lab inputs doesn’t guarantee more accurate or actionable guidance. Analysts tracking the consumer health-tech space expect more deals of this shape, as device makers without their own testing infrastructure look to lab-test startups to fill the gap.
Photo: Andrey Matveev / PEXELS via Pexels
