Findings from a structured pilot of Recallify with ten adults living with Long Covid
Findings from a structured two-week pilot of Recallify with ten adults living with Long Covid.
By the Recallify Research Team
Brain fog is one of the most disabling and persistent features of Long Covid. It's not a metaphor. It refers to a measurable cluster of cognitive changes — slower processing, word-finding difficulties, weakened short-term memory, reduced attention — that the largest published study on the topic estimated affects up to 85% of people with Long Covid (LC), with deficits comparable to a meaningful drop in IQ in the most affected groups (Hampshire et al., 2024, New England Journal of Medicine).
People living with LC have been telling us for some time that this is the symptom that most disrupts work, study and daily independence. We've covered the wider context of brain fog and what helps in our earlier post on Long Covid, brain fog and cognitive support. This post summarises our Long Covid pilot study: a structured two-week evaluation we ran in February and March 2026 with ten adults living with LC, to find out whether Recallify, an AI assisted memory and organisation platform, could meaningfully reduce day-to-day cognitive load. The full results are written up in a whitepaper, which you can download below. The summary is here.
Why we ran this Long Covid pilot study
Cognitive symptoms in Long Covid are well documented. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis identified consistent post-Covid impairments across memory, attention, executive function and processing speed (Fanshawe et al., 2025). The Office for National Statistics reports that 78% of people with LC have had to stop, reduce or change their workload, and 19% are unable to work at all.
What's much less well documented is what helps. Specialist Long Covid clinics in the UK have been progressively defunded, with only 46 of the original 120 confirmed operational as of May 2025. This is exactly the gap that low-cost, accessible digital tools should be able to fill, but the evidence base for those tools in the LC population is still thin. We wanted to know whether adults living with LC find Recallify usable and acceptable in their everyday lives, and which features actually carry the cognitive load.
Who took part
Ten adults living with Long Covid joined the pilot. The group was eight women and two men, aged 40 to 61, with a mean age of 50.2. That distribution is consistent with the wider literature: LC prevalence is highest in women and in people aged 45 to 54.
Nine of the ten participants completed the full two-week pilot. The tenth participant discontinued early because Recallify did not yet support repeating reminders, which were essential to their primary use case (medication scheduling). We've since prioritised this feature in our development cycle, more on that in a follow-up post next week.
What we measured
Each participant was given an orientation video, used Recallify in their everyday life for two weeks, and completed three validated usability scales plus a semi-structured exit interview. There was a coaching check-in at the end of week one.
System Usability Scale (SUS-10). Ten items, score 0 to 100. A score of 68 is the published average for software; 80 and above sits in the "excellent" band.
User Experience Questionnaire — Short (UEQ-S). Two scores on a −3 to +3 scale: Pragmatic Quality (clarity, efficiency) and Hedonic Quality (originality, stimulation). Anything above +0.8 is clearly positive.
Single Ease Question (SEQ). A single 1 to 7 rating of overall ease of use.
Headline findings
| Measure | Mean | Range | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| SUS (0–100) | 78.5 | 40.0 – 97.5 | Above average; 7 of 10 in the "excellent" band |
| UEQ-S Pragmatic | +1.05 | −0.75 – +2.00 | Clearly positive |
| UEQ-S Hedonic | +0.63 | −1.25 – +2.00 | Neutral to positive |
| SEQ (1–7) | 6.9 | 6 – 7 | At ceiling for 8 of 9 respondents |
Three things stand out. First, usability scores cluster firmly in the "good to excellent" range. Seven of ten participants scored Recallify in the excellent band on the SUS, which is a high bar for any consumer software, and a particularly high bar in a population that experiences cognitive fatigue.
Second, the Pragmatic score (+1.05) is meaningfully higher than the Hedonic score (+0.63). In plain English: participants found Recallify clearly useful, and felt neutrally to mildly positively about it as an experience. We've taken this as a signal that the next phase of design needs to do more on the affective side.
Third, ease of completing tasks (SEQ) was effectively at ceiling. Eight of the nine participants who provided a score gave 7 out of 7. Fast capture, in a population where every additional second of effort during a fatigue episode matters, is the feature participants returned to most often.
What participants told us
Four themes emerged from the interviews.
A "second brain" for cognitive offloading. Participants consistently described Recallify as a way to externalise information so the cognitive resource needed to hold it could be released for other things. Several used the phrase "second brain" without prompting. This was particularly valued during fatigue or cognitive flares.
"Just be my brain really. If I think of something I'll put it in the app and let that deal with it."
"If you're just relying on your mind to manage your tasks, you might forget things. Having it there as a digital reminder helps."
Voice-first capture. The voice recording function was the most frequently named "best bit" of the app. Participants described typing as effortful, especially during fatigue, and contrasted it with the speed of speaking a thought directly into Recallify. The combination of voice capture and automatic task extraction was repeatedly described as the feature that made the app feel different from a generic notes or reminders app.
"You just have to say it once and it will save it as a task and set reminders for you and everything."
"Being able to record myself talking to it rather than typing it in, it just is so much easier dictating as you're going along."
Intuitive design. Most participants found the app intuitive and were navigating the core features after a short period of self-directed exploration. The home screen layout, with the record button positioned prominently, was praised as supporting fast capture in the moments when participants needed it most.
"The whole home screen really, as it stands, is pretty good. Everything that I want to do is right there in front of me."
The first week is the hardest, and coaching helps. Several participants noted that their cognitive symptoms made it hard to remember to use the app, particularly in the first week. Importantly, this was framed as a behavioural-adoption issue rather than a fault of the design. Once the app became part of a routine, it was described as helpful. The coaching check-in at the end of week one was specifically mentioned as the moment that turned use into a habit. We've written separately about the practical side of building cognitive support into a daily habit.
Tip: If you're new to Recallify, give yourself a structured first week. The participants who got the most from it built one small habit at a time, anchored to something they were already doing.
What participants valued most
Six features came up repeatedly across the interviews.
Voice-first capture. Faster, easier and lower effort than typing during cognitive fatigue.
AI summarisation. Condensing meetings, calls and uploaded documents into key points; especially valued for medical appointments and lengthy presentations.
Automatic task extraction. Pulling discrete tasks out of a "rambling" voice note, reframing a single overwhelming project into manageable steps.
Calendar integration. Reminders pushed automatically into Google Calendar and other calendars participants already used.
Quizzes from uploaded content. Used to test understanding of medical reports and recorded calls; described as "really useful" for retaining information when concentration is impaired.
Document handling and privacy. Uploads of PDFs, presentations and clinical papers, with on-device processing as a meaningful trade-off for slightly slower processing time.
What we're building next
A pilot is only as useful as the changes it triggers. Several specific design improvements were identified by participants, and three of them — recurring events, a cleaner time-entry experience, and a tightened daily view — are addressed in our current development cycle. We'll cover those changes in a follow-up post in the next few days.
The deeper finding shaping our roadmap is the gap between the Pragmatic and Hedonic scores. The functional value is clearly there. The next phase of design has to do more on how the platform feels to use, particularly in moments of fatigue, where reassurance and a sense of mastery matter as much as task completion. One participant captured it cleanly: "It's a good place for me to stop stressing." That sentence is the design brief for the next iteration.
Read the full whitepaper
The complete pilot writeup, including the full quantitative tables, the qualitative coding, and the discussion of how these findings fit the wider Long Covid and cognitive rehabilitation literature, is available as a PDF.
What this means for Long Covid digital support
Two weeks and ten participants is a pilot, not a trial. The picture is consistent: AI-assisted memory support is feasible and acceptable in this population, the value proposition (cognitive offloading via voice and AI) is coherent, and the friction points are addressable.
The wider context matters. Specialist LC clinics are being defunded across the UK at the same time as the published evidence on cognitive impact in this population is hardening. Low-cost, accessible digital adjuncts are not a substitute for clinical care, but they are a credible part of the support stack, and the case for making tools like Recallify available through NHS commissioning routes is what we're building next. Our parallel NIHR funded feasibility study with adults with acquired brain injury is part of that case, alongside our existing work on cognitive challenges in Multiple Sclerosis.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What did the Recallify Long Covid pilot study find?
In a two-week pilot with ten adults living with Long Covid, Recallify scored 78.5 on the System Usability Scale, with seven of ten participants in the “excellent” band. Pragmatic quality on the User Experience Questionnaire was clearly positive at +1.05, and ease of completing tasks was at ceiling for eight of nine respondents. Qualitative interviews surfaced strong themes around cognitive offloading, voice-first capture, and intuitive design. The full findings are written up in the whitepaper.
How was the Long Covid pilot study conducted?
Ten adults living with Long Covid used Recallify in their everyday lives for two weeks during February and March 2026. They received an orientation at the start, a coaching check-in at the end of week one, and a semi-structured exit interview at the end of week two. Participants completed three validated usability scales: the System Usability Scale, the User Experience Questionnaire Short, and the Single Ease Question. Nine of the ten participants completed the full two-week period.
Can an AI memory app help with Long Covid brain fog?
Findings from our Long Covid pilot study suggest yes, in the sense of reducing cognitive load rather than treating the underlying condition. Participants described Recallify as a “second brain” that took the burden of remembering tasks, appointments, and information off their own working memory. Voice capture was particularly valued during fatigue, when typing felt effortful. Recallify is not a medical device and does not treat Long Covid. It is intended to complement, not replace, clinical care.
Why is voice capture helpful for people with Long Covid?
Long Covid often slows processing speed and reduces working memory capacity, while persistent fatigue compounds both. Typing places simultaneous demands on motor planning, spelling, and visual attention, all of which are harder during a fatigue flare. Speaking a thought directly into the app bypasses most of these demands. In our pilot, several participants described being able to “speak it once” and have a task created for them as the moment they understood the platform’s value.
Which Recallify features did Long Covid pilot participants value most?
Voice-first capture was the most frequently named “best bit” across the interviews, because it sidesteps the typing effort that participants found difficult during fatigue. AI summarisation of meetings and medical appointments came up repeatedly, as did automatic task extraction from voice notes. Calendar integration, document handling with on-device privacy, and quizzes generated from uploaded content rounded out the most-valued features.
Is Recallify a treatment or a cure for Long Covid?
No. Recallify is an AI assisted memory and organisation platform designed to reduce cognitive load. It is not a medical device, does not provide diagnosis or clinical decision support, and is not a treatment or cure for Long Covid. Many people with Long Covid use it alongside their clinical care to manage everyday tasks, appointments, and information when brain fog and fatigue make remembering difficult.
Will Recallify be available through the NHS?
We are actively building the case for Recallify to be available through NHS commissioning routes, so that the platform reaches the people most likely to benefit. Our parallel feasibility study with adults living with acquired brain injury, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is part of that wider commissioning pathway. Findings from the Long Covid pilot study contribute to that evidence base alongside the brain injury work.
Where can I read the full Long Covid pilot study whitepaper?
The full whitepaper is available as a free PDF download from the link in this article. It includes the complete quantitative tables, the qualitative coding, and the discussion of how the findings fit the wider literature on cognitive impairment and rehabilitation in Long Covid. If you would like to discuss the findings or receive future updates, you can email research@recallify.ai.