Google launches ‘What People Suggest’ feature for healthcare insights
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — Google launched a major expansion of its health-focused search tools recently, introducing an AI-powered feature that allows patients to compare experiences with others who share their medical conditions, a move designed to bring real-world insights into various health conditions.
This update marks Google’s latest bid to cement its role in digital health, leveraging its dominance in search to deliver more personalized, data-driven guidance in healthcare.
AI patient-matching for health searches
Google has launched a suite of AI-driven health-care tools designed to enhance patient experiences and streamline medical information access..
Among the key updates is “What People Suggest,” a new feature that aggregates anonymized patient insights, allowing users to compare their health journeys with others facing similar conditions such as arthritis struggles exploring exercise strategies. The tool is currently available on mobile devices in the United States.
Google also expanded its knowledge panels, now covering thousands of additional health topics, with support rolling out in Spanish, Japanese, and Portuguese.
“With extraordinary advances in AI, we have an opportunity to reimagine the entire health experience,” said Karen DeSalvo, Chief Health Officer of Google Health, during an event in New York City.
With these upgrades, Google aims to bridge gaps in healthcare accessibility, empowering users with data-driven insights while prioritizing privacy through anonymized data. The global expansion of language support underscores its commitment to making reliable medical information available to diverse populations.
Google’s risky reboot through AI diagnostics
After shuttering its 500-employee health unit in 2018, Google is redirecting medical ambitions through core search products despite experts flagging risks.
While new AI features like symptom comparisons and multilingual knowledge panels expand globally, 70% of the company’s health summaries were deemed medically risky, said medical experts, raising stakes for its Gemini-powered upgrades.
Meanwhile, Google is refining its controversial AI Overviews, automated search summaries after early missteps, using its advanced Gemini models to improve accuracy in medical responses. The company added MedLM as a clinical-focused AI suite and Vertex AI search for healthcare as a tool to expedite medical data retrieval from multiple information systems.
These innovations underscore Google’s push to embed AI deeper into health care despite past organizational shifts as it aims to redefine how patients and professionals access critical information.
