Abbott just rolled out two major upgrades to the U.S. Freestyle Libre app: Libre Assist and an updated Apple Watch experience. Together, they aim to bring smarter food awareness and easier access to glucose information, all within the same ecosystem most Libre users in the U.S. already rely on.

Libre Assist is built to help users better understand how food choices affect glucose levels in a simple and visual way. From the Insights tab, users can now snap or upload a photo of a meal or enter a text description, and the feature uses generative AI to estimate how that food may impact glucose. The predicted effect is labeled as Minor, Moderate, or Major, making it easy to understand at a glance without digging into numbers.

Libre Assist will also follow through with users after the meal. The feature offers personalized suggestions such as ways to reduce a meal’s glucose impact or ideas for making similar meals more glucose friendly in the future. These recommendations are based on individual preferences and logged foods. A few hours later, users receive a Food Rating notification that shows the Actual Impact using real continuous glucose monitor (CGM) data, helping close the gap between prediction and real world response.

The second update is a long awaited Apple Watch app. Libre now offers direct watch support that displays current glucose values along with a trend graph. It includes multiple widget options for the watch homescreen, including a large center location, a small round option, and a corner widget for circular watch faces. Users can tap these complications to open the app. Right now, you cannot zoom in or out of the trend graph and that is something we hope Abbott adds in a future update. I think the large widget pictured below is the best option and hope Abbott chooses to make the glucose number and arrow a bit larger.

These updates highlight how competitive the CGM space has become, especially between Abbott and Dexcom. Dexcom has introduced its own AI food imaging tools, as well as an upcoming Trends tab, which helps users better understand glucose patterns over time. Dexcom has also offered Apple Watch support for a while now, along with direct-to-Apple Watch connection. With Libre Assist and expanded Apple Watch functionality, Abbott is clearly responding by bringing its own competitive tools to the Libre ecosystem.

The Libre app with all of these new features is currently only available in the U.S., but Abbott says it plans to release it elsewhere in the near future. The Libre app works with Libre 2, Libre 2 Plus, Libre 3, and Libre 3 Plus systems.

Abbott continues to strengthen the Libre platform with future developments like a dual glucose ketone sensor currently in the works.

Disclaimer: Diabetech content is not medical advice—it’s for educational purposes only. Always consult with a physician before making changes to your healthcare.