Google pulls AI‑driven “What People Suggest” health tips from Reddit, scrapping the

Google’s decision to pull “What people suggest” comes amid a broader effort to streamline its search results page, a move the company hinted at in a brief November 2025 post. In that post, Google said it had “identified some features that aren’t being used very often and aren’t adding significant value to users… So we’re beginning to phase these lesser‑used features out.” The announcement did not name the health‑tips widget, but the timing aligns with the feature’s disappearance, according to 9to5Google, which first reported the removal after Google confirmed it to The Guardian.

When the feature launched early in 2025, Google marketed it as a way to “organize different perspectives from online discussions into easy‑to‑understand themes, helping you quickly grasp what people are saying” with AI assistance. The tool scraped user‑generated content from Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), Quora, and similar forums, then presented summarized health suggestions alongside traditional search results for queries like “Why does my leg hurt?” (9to5Google). The promise was to surface first‑person experiences that could complement clinical information, a concept that initially drew curiosity from both users and industry observers.

Google’s spokesperson later clarified that the removal was not driven by concerns over quality or safety. “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,” the company told The Guardian (9to5Google). This statement follows earlier reports that Google’s AI Overviews had occasionally generated misleading health advice, prompting the tech giant to disable AI‑generated results on certain health‑related queries. The company has since been tweaking its AI modes, making source links more clickable and refining how it surfaces medical content (9to5Google).

The scrapping of “What people suggest” also reflects Google’s cautious stance after regulatory scrutiny of AI‑driven health information. While the feature was never a headline‑grabbing product, its reliance on unvetted community posts raised red‑flag concerns among health‑information advocates. By pruning the feature, Google can reduce the risk of amplifying anecdotal advice that may conflict with evidence‑based guidelines, a risk it has already acknowledged in other AI‑powered search experiments.

Analysts note that the removal is unlikely to dent Google’s overall search dominance, but it does signal a shift in how the company balances experimental AI features with user trust. The broader simplification of the search results page—aimed at decluttering the interface and focusing on high‑value signals—suggests Google is prioritizing consistency over novelty in its AI rollouts (9to5Google). As the company continues to iterate on AI Overviews, source attribution, and health‑specific safeguards, the “What people suggest” experiment will likely serve as a case study in the trade‑off between personalization and reliability.