Your gut is one of the most personal things about you. The data we read from it — your microbiome, down to the genetic level — is more intimate than almost anything else in your medical record. So we make you two promises, and we take them equally seriously:
We guard that data like it's our own. And we use it to do something for you that simply wasn't possible a few years ago.
Those two promises aren't in tension. They're the whole point. The more powerful the science gets, the more sacred the privacy has to be.
Our commitment to your privacy — and to HIPAA
When you work with Flore through a provider, your information is protected health information (PHI), and we treat it that way. Our commitment rests on a few non-negotiables:
- Encryption. Sensitive data is encrypted, both stored and in transit, so it isn't readable if intercepted.
- Strict access controls. Only the people who need to see your data can — your provider sees their patients; coaches see only the patients assigned to them; system-wide records are limited to administrators. Access is scoped, not open.
- Authenticated access. Accounts are protected with two-factor authentication.
- A firewall between programs. Your direct-to-consumer data and clinical data are kept separated by design, so information doesn't bleed across contexts it wasn't meant for.
- Your data is yours. You own your information. Research only ever uses de-identified, consented data — never your name attached to your results.
- HIPAA as the floor, not the ceiling. We align our handling of PHI with HIPAA requirements and treat that as a starting point, not a finish line.
Privacy isn't a legal checkbox for us. It's the thing that makes everything below trustworthy enough to be worth doing.
AI at Flore: not just a designer — an analyst that sees what humans can't
It's easy to assume “AI” means a chatbot or a logo generator. That's not the interesting part. At Flore, AI is the analytical engine that makes precision possible — and it's doing work that no team of human analysts could do by hand.
The old way: educated guesses
For decades, probiotics were essentially one-size-fits-all. You picked a bottle off a shelf, hoped the strains were relevant to you, and had no way to know if they matched what your gut actually needed. It was a guess dressed up as a choice.
What AI unlocks: reading the genome, not just the label
Your microbiome isn't a short list of bacteria — it's a genetic universe. Modern sequencing reads it deeply, and AI lets us actually understand it at a resolution no human could hold in their head:
- Every gene. Not just which microbes are present, but the genes they carry — the functional tools your microbial community actually has.
- Every mutation within a gene. Small genetic variations change what a gene does. AI can weigh those variations across your whole microbial community — the kind of fine detail that would take a human analyst a lifetime to trace.
- The pathways they sit in. Genes don't act alone; they operate in metabolic pathways. AI maps how your genes and mutations connect into pathways — the systems that produce (or fail to produce) the compounds that shape how you feel.
- The link to outcomes. By learning patterns across large, de-identified datasets, AI helps connect those genetic and pathway signatures to real-world patterns — turning a wall of raw sequence into something actionable for you. This is pattern analysis that supports personalization; it is not a diagnosis.
And we've built it to be efficient. A proprietary approach lets us reach this gene-level resolution far faster, and at meaningfully lower compute cost, than conventional pipelines — which is part of how analysis this deep stays practical instead of prohibitively expensive. (We'll always tell you what our science does; the exact method behind it is ours to keep.)
This is the leap: from “here's a popular probiotic” to “here's what your gut's own genetics say it's missing, and here's a formulation built to address exactly that.”
Precision probiotics — with bacteriophage helpers
Understanding the problem in that much detail lets us get precise about the solution in two directions at once:
- Adding what's missing — the beneficial strains your formulation is built from, matched to your gut's actual genetic and functional gaps.
- Targeting what's in the way — this is the frontier. Bacteriophages are viruses that hunt one specific bacterium and leave everything else untouched (the counterpart we measure in PFU, not CFU). As precision science advances, phages point toward “helpers” that could selectively thin out a problem overgrowth while your beneficial strains take hold — precision removal paired with precision addition. This is a research-stage direction, not a shipping Flore product.
The vision is a gut ecosystem that's tuned, not blasted — and AI is what makes tuning at the genetic level even thinkable. (How we confirm the strains we do add are real and alive is its own discipline — see AFU and how a probiotic is verified.)
Why privacy and AI belong on the same page
Here's the honest reason these two topics live together: the more deeply we can read your biology, the more it matters who's allowed to. An AI that can trace every gene and pathway in your microbiome is only a gift if the data feeding it is fiercely protected and used only for you and, with your consent, for de-identified research. Powerful analysis without ironclad privacy isn't innovation — it's exposure. We refuse to separate the two.
That's the Flore commitment: science that finally looks at your gut in your detail — and a promise to guard what it learns like it's our own. It supports personalization; it does not diagnose disease or replace your doctor.
Frequently asked questions
Is my data protected under HIPAA at Flore?
When you work with Flore through a provider, your information is treated as protected health information, with encryption, scoped access controls, and authenticated logins.
Does Flore use my personal data to train AI?
Research and model development use de-identified, consented data — your results are never tied to your name for those purposes.
How does AI actually help my probiotic?
It analyzes your microbiome at the genetic level — the genes present, variations within them, and the pathways they form — and connects those patterns to build a formulation matched to your gut, at a depth no manual analysis could reach. It supports personalization; it does not diagnose disease or replace your doctor.
What are bacteriophage “helpers”?
Bacteriophages are viruses that target one specific bacterium and nothing else. As precision science advances, they represent a potential way to selectively reduce a problem overgrowth while beneficial probiotics are added — a research-stage frontier, not a product you can buy today.
Is AI making medical decisions about me?
No. AI analyzes microbiome data to support personalized formulations. Clinical decisions stay with you and your healthcare provider.