Google pulls AI search tool that crowdsourced amateur medical advice

Google’s decision to retire “What People Suggest” comes amid a broader effort to streamline its search interface, according to a Google spokesperson who said the removal was unrelated to concerns about the feature’s safety or accuracy. The tool, launched in March 2023, had used generative AI to aggregate anecdotal health tips from online discussions and present them alongside traditional search results. It was initially rolled out on mobile devices in the United States, with the company touting the ability to surface “real insights from people who also have the condition” (The Guardian).

The feature’s demise follows a series of controversies surrounding Google’s AI‑driven health content. In January, The Guardian reported that Google’s AI Overviews—summaries that appear above organic results for medical queries—were delivering misleading information to roughly two billion users each month. Independent experts warned that the overviews sometimes omitted critical caveats and could steer users toward harmful self‑treatment. Google initially downplayed the findings, then partially withdrew the Overviews for certain medical topics while keeping others live (The Guardian). The “What People Suggest” rollout was framed as a corrective measure, promising to complement expert‑sourced answers with lived‑experience perspectives, but the recent pull‑back suggests the company is reassessing the balance between user‑generated content and clinical reliability.

Internal sources familiar with the decision confirmed that the feature is “dead,” indicating a swift internal consensus to discontinue it (The Guardian). The move aligns with a pattern of incremental rollbacks: after the January backlash, Google removed AI Overviews for some, but not all, health queries, and now it has excised the crowdsourced advice layer entirely. The spokesperson’s statement that the change is part of a “broader simplification” of the search page hints at a strategic shift toward a cleaner UI, potentially reducing the prominence of AI‑generated snippets that have drawn regulatory scrutiny.

Google’s chief health officer, Karen DeSalvo, had previously defended the feature in a blog post, arguing that users value peer experiences alongside expert guidance and that AI could “organize different perspectives from online discussions into easy‑to‑understand themes” (The Guardian). However, the rapid removal underscores the difficulty of vetting unverified medical anecdotes at scale. Unlike curated medical literature, user‑generated content lacks consistent quality controls, making it vulnerable to misinformation—a risk that regulators and consumer‑advocacy groups have highlighted repeatedly.

The episode adds to mounting pressure on big tech firms to police AI‑generated health information. While Google has not disclosed any regulatory penalties, the public scrutiny generated by The Guardian’s investigations has forced the company to adopt a more cautious rollout strategy. Analysts note that the company’s broader AI ambitions—such as expanding medical‑related AI summaries announced at a New York event in March 2022—must now contend with heightened expectations for safety and transparency (The Guardian). As Google trims experimental features, the industry will be watching whether the firm can reconcile its drive for AI‑enhanced search with the imperative to protect users from harmful medical advice.