CaryHealth Clair vs OpenEvidence (2026)
Both are clinical reference tools, and an outside study has now tested them side by side. Clair, from CaryHealth in Washington, DC, answers from named public sources: FDA package inserts, the NIH trials database, a National Library of Medicine interaction database and clinical guidelines. Its six tools lean pharmacologic, so it works more like a drug and therapeutics reference than a disease reference, and an API lets other products embed it. OpenEvidence answers from the wider literature under named journal partnerships, free to verified clinicians and paid for by advertising. A 2026 pharmacy study put 30 drug information questions to both. OpenEvidence scored highest of the chatbots tested, and Clair scored below a general purpose chatbot.
- A bounded corpus of named public drug, trial and guideline sources, with every answer linked to its references.
- Published API documentation for embedding the reference in another product.
- A $9.99 professional subscription after a free trial, bought without a sales call.
- The highest score of the chatbots in an independent 2026 drug information study.
- A public trust center carrying its SOC 2 Type 2 report, where Clair publishes no certification.
- Free use for verified clinicians, and deployments inside the record at named health systems.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. CaryHealth Clair and OpenEvidence are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | CaryHealth Clair | OpenEvidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Clinical Reference & Evidence | Clinical Reference & Evidence |
| Founded | Not recorded | 2021 |
| Headquarters | Washington, District of Columbia | Miami, Florida |
| Website | cary.health | openevidence.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
OpenEvidence
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Product / capability
OpenEvidence added the American Society of Addiction Medicine's clinical guidelines, guidance and implementation resources to the content behind its answers.
Source -
Product / capability
OpenEvidence launched Patient Take-Homes, a new feature allowing clinicians to optionally turn AI-generated answers into educational materials for their patients.
Source -
Clinical evidence
A systematic review published in npj Digital Medicine evaluated 11 studies assessing OpenEvidence's clinical question-answering capabilities.
Source
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Clinical AI reference platform from CaryHealth (Cary Rx Incorporated, Washington, DC), launched in August 2024 on the back of the company's GalenAI acquisition and available at askclair.ai, on the web and as iOS and Android apps, with an API for embedding. Chief executive Areo Nazari, a pharmacist by training; chief technology officer Matt Hawkins.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
AI medical search and clinical decision support used at the point of care, free to verified United States and Canadian clinicians and funded by pharmaceutical and medical device advertising shown inside the product, with enterprise deployments embedded in the electronic health record at named health systems. The published model family is Osler for direct answers in seconds, Sackett for a more thorough survey.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do CaryHealth Clair and OpenEvidence work with the EHR?
The product page states that Clair integrates seamlessly into EHR systems and CaryHealth platforms and describes a flexible API based architecture for integrating into an organization's infrastructure.
With OpenEvidence, the first party evidence is recent. On 22 September 2026 the company and the University of Texas Medical Branch announced a collaboration putting cited clinical evidence inside the electronic health record, live at UTMB since March 2026, with adoption reported as growing since launch. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are CaryHealth Clair and OpenEvidence priced and sold?
In CaryHealth Clair's case, the company's App Store listing, a field the developer controls, shows the app as free to download with in app purchases, says a subscription is required after the trial period ends, and names one: Clair Professional at $9.99. The web product at askclair.ai and the Android app are linked from the product page for individual clinicians to start without a sales conversation.
For OpenEvidence, the named health system collaborations announced through 2026 carry no commercial terms. It is also not stated whether free individual use by a health system's clinicians creates any institutional obligation before a contract exists. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do CaryHealth Clair and OpenEvidence handle patient data?
With CaryHealth Clair, the terms of use (last updated 10 November 2025) say questions and prompts are provided to third party LLMs to generate responses, that content is used to improve the AI features, and grant the company a worldwide, royalty free, transferable, perpetual license to content users submit, including content entered into AI features.
In OpenEvidence's case, the scope is narrower than it first looks. The exclusion is drawn around protected health information, not around everything a clinician types. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do CaryHealth Clair and OpenEvidence cover?
For CaryHealth Clair, the product page presents Clair as having a tool for any clinical question, across healthcare professionals, health plans, pharmaceutical manufacturers and life sciences, and the terms limit use to adults in the United States.
With OpenEvidence, the product now covers the consultation, the encounter through Visits, and patient contact through the Dialer, with an education platform carrying continuing education and maintenance of certification credit added on 28 July 2026. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. In the pharmacy study every chatbot scored well below the faculty's own answers, and Clair's exact score sits in a full text that could not be read. Clair's App Store listing promises zero hallucinations, while its terms say its AI features may not be accurate.
Ask Clair how it reconciles those two statements, and ask OpenEvidence where its drug answers still fall short of a pharmacist's.