Google takes down AI Overviews for specific health-related searches

Google Adjusts AI Overviews After Concerns Over Health Information

After a report by the Guardian revealed that Google’s AI Overviews were providing potentially inaccurate responses to certain health-related searches, Google has seemingly withdrawn these AI-generated summaries for some of those queries.

Initially, the Guardian highlighted that when users searched for “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” the AI Overview returned figures that failed to consider important variables like age, gender, ethnicity, or nationality. This omission could have misled individuals into believing their test results were within a healthy range when they might not be.

According to a follow-up from the Guardian, Google has now removed AI Overviews from search results for queries such as “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” and “what is the normal range for liver function tests.” However, the publication noted that similar searches, like “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range,” could still prompt AI-generated answers.

When I tested these queries myself a few hours after the Guardian’s article was published, none of them displayed AI Overviews. Google, however, still offered the option to ask the same question in AI Mode. Interestingly, the Guardian’s own article about the removal often appeared as the top search result.

In response, a Google representative told the Guardian that the company does not “comment on individual removals within Search,” but emphasized their ongoing efforts to “make broad improvements.” The spokesperson also mentioned that Google’s internal team of clinicians had reviewed the queries in question and determined that, in many cases, the information provided was accurate and supported by reputable sources.

TechCrunch has contacted Google for further clarification. Last year, Google introduced new healthcare-focused features for Search, including enhanced overviews and AI models tailored to medical topics.

Vanessa Hebditch, communications and policy director at the British Liver Trust, described the removal as “excellent news” in comments to the Guardian. However, she also expressed concern that addressing a single search result does not resolve the larger issue of how AI Overviews handle health information, noting, “Our bigger concern with all this is that it is nit-picking a single search result and Google can just shut off the AI Overviews for that but it’s not tackling the bigger issue of AI Overviews for health.”

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