Counsel Health vs Ubie (2026)
Both give patients AI guidance on symptoms, and they end in different places. Counsel Health is a physician supervised virtual care company: medical AI gathers context and gives initial guidance by chat and voice message, and a board certified physician from its own medical group, licensed in all fifty states, joins when diagnosis, prescription or referral is needed, usually within fifteen minutes during stated hours. Ubie, a Japanese company, offers a free consumer symptom checker that turns a three minute adaptive questionnaire covering about 1,000 diseases into a report on possible causes and when to seek care, and sells Smart Support to medical practices. Choose Counsel when the patient needs a physician; choose Ubie for free guidance on where to go next.
- The patient may need a diagnosis, prescription or referral.
- A physician should join the conversation when needed.
- Care should continue by chat and voice message.
- Patients want free guidance on possible causes and where to seek care.
- A three minute questionnaire suits your patients better than a conversation.
- Your practice wants the same engine through Smart Support.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Counsel Health and Ubie 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 | Counsel Health | Ubie |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Patient Voice Agents | Clinical Decision Support |
| Founded | 2023 | 2017 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, United States | Tokyo, Japan |
| Website | counselhealth.com | ubiehealth.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.
Counsel Health
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Product / capability
Counsel Health launched a GLP-1 weight management program in the 44 states where its consumer service operates.
Source -
Product / capability
Counsel Health launched Counsel Studio, a white-label deployment platform enabling healthcare organizations to embed its AI-enabled virtual care interface directly into their own applications.
Source
Ubie
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Regulatory / guideline
Ubie's AI-powered patient access tool, Smart Support, has been officially qualified on the Mayo Clinic Platform.
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.
Physician supervised virtual care company delivering asynchronous care through chat and voice messaging. Medical AI gathers context and provides initial evidence based guidance, and a board certified physician from an in house medical group licensed across all fifty states joins the conversation when diagnosis, prescription or referral is required, usually in under fifteen minutes during stated clinical hours of 8am to 9pm seven days a week.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Japanese health technology company with two AI products. The free consumer symptom checker generates a report on possible causes and when to seek care from a roughly three-minute adaptive questionnaire covering about 1,000 diseases, built on more than 50,000 publications, supervised by more than 50 named physicians and refined on real-world data from more than 1,700 providers.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How are Counsel Health and Ubie priced and sold?
For Counsel Health, the company frames value in terms of avoided high cost claims and per engaged member savings from avoided care and utilization, which suggests a per member arrangement, but no rate or structure is disclosed.
With Ubie, the symptom checker is free, with no registration or card. Smart Support, sold to practices and health systems, is priced on usage so cost tracks answered calls, offers a free trial for smaller practices and a one-sheet with pricing on request; set-up takes days, with EHR integration handled by the company. 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 Counsel Health and Ubie cover?
In Counsel Health's case, the physician group is licensed in all fifty states, which removes the state by state coverage gaps common in telehealth, and service runs 8am to 9pm seven days a week.
For Ubie, the consumer checker covers about 1,000 diseases by symptom, disease, body part and specialty, including mental health and women's health, in Japan, the United States and other markets, with algorithms said to be customized by country. 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.
What evidence is published for Counsel Health and Ubie?
With Counsel Health, the company reports that survey data shows it helped 77 percent of users avoid in person care, and describes serving tens of thousands of patients through health plan and provider partnerships across multiple states.
In Ubie's case, the symptom checker page cites a medRxiv preprint (2024) reporting top 10 accuracy of 71.6 percent on clinical vignettes against about 60 percent for other symptom checkers; vignettes are written cases, not live patients, and the preprint is not peer reviewed. 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 much do Counsel Health and Ubie leave to the clinician?
For Counsel Health, a physician joins when medically necessary, usually in under fifteen minutes, during stated clinical hours of 8am to 9pm seven days a week. Publishing the hours a person is reachable and the time it takes to reach them answers two questions directly.
With Ubie, the consumer checker returns possible causes and when to see a doctor, with physician supervision of content ahead of use. Smart Support sets urgency (emergency department, urgent care or routine) by clinical rules, shows its reasoning to staff, and routes according to the practice's referral preferences, escalation thresholds and assignments; the health systems page lists nurse-triage augmentation among its uses. 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. The full set for this category is on the Patient Voice Agents page.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. Ubie's checker is free to consumers; Counsel publishes no price. Ubie advises patients on the level of care without stating a US regulatory position, and publishes little independent evidence about its security.
Ask Ubie how its care level advice is validated, and ask Counsel how messages outside clinical hours are handled.