Google scraps AI search feature offering crowdsourced health advice

ISTANBUL

Google has removed an artificial intelligence-powered search feature that offered crowdsourced health advice from non-experts, The Guardian reported on Monday.

The company had said the feature, “What People Suggest,” which shared tips from strangers, demonstrated “the potential of AI to transform health outcomes across the globe.”

However, Google has since quietly scrapped the feature.

A Google spokesperson confirmed that “What People Suggest” had been discontinued, saying the move was part of a “broader simplification” of the search page and unrelated to the feature’s quality or safety.

The development comes as Google faces growing scrutiny over its use of AI to deliver health information to millions of users.

In January, a Guardian investigation found users were being exposed to harmful, false or misleading health information in Google’s AI Overviews.

Google initially downplayed the findings, saying the AI Overviews linked to reputable sources and encouraged users to seek expert advice. Days later, it removed AI Overviews for some, though not all, medical queries.

At a New York event in March last year, Google announced plans to expand AI-generated medical summaries in search. It introduced “What People Suggest,” a feature designed to surface insights from people with similar lived medical experiences.

On the day of the “Check Up” event, Karen DeSalvo, then Google’s chief health officer, explained the rationale in a blog post:

“While people come to search to find reliable medical information from experts, they also value hearing from others who have similar experiences,” wrote DeSalvo. “That’s why we’re making it even easier to find this type of information on Search with a new feature labelled ‘What People Suggest’.”

The feature initially launched on mobile in the US, but sources say it has since been dropped. “It’s dead,” said one person familiar with the decision.

A Google spokesperson said: “This feature was turned off months ago as part of a broader simplification of the search results page, which we shared publicly.”

When asked where this had been “shared publicly,” the spokesperson pointed to a November blog post by John Mueller, a search advocate at Google Switzerland, though it does not mention “What People Suggest.”

Asked if safety concerns influenced the decision, the spokesperson said: “It had nothing to do with the quality or safety of the feature, and we continue to help people find reliable health information from a range of sources, including forums with first-person perspectives that people find incredibly useful.”