Google quietly drops AI feature that crowdsourced medical advice
TL;DR: Google has removed “What People Suggest”, an AI-powered search feature that aggregated health advice from online discussions by non-experts. The company says the removal was part of a broader search page simplification, not a safety decision. The move adds to a pattern of Google retreating from AI health features after public scrutiny, including partial rollbacks of AI Overviews for medical queries earlier this year.
Google has confirmed that “What People Suggest” is no longer active, according to a Guardian report citing three people familiar with the decision. The feature, launched on US mobile devices last year, used AI to organise health-related perspectives from online forums into themed summaries.
When it launched in March 2025, Google’s then-chief health officer Karen DeSalvo described it as a way to surface “real insights from people who also have the condition”. The example given was an arthritis patient finding exercise tips from others with the same diagnosis.
A pattern of quiet retreats
A Google spokesperson attributed the removal to “a broader simplification of the search results page”, pointing to a November blog post that makes no mention of the feature. The company explicitly denied safety played any role.
But the timing is difficult to separate from wider pressure on Google’s AI health outputs. In January, a Guardian investigation found AI Overviews were surfacing false and misleading medical information to the 2 billion people who see those summaries each month. Google initially pushed back, then removed AI Overviews for some medical search terms.
The company had positioned AI health features as a growth area. Now it has quietly shelved at least two of them within months of each other.
What this means for AI in healthcare search
For UK health technology providers and NHS digital teams watching how major platforms handle medical AI, the pattern is instructive. Crowdsourcing health advice from untrained individuals sits uncomfortably alongside Google’s stated commitment to “reliable health information from experts.”
Google’s next health-focused event, “The Check Up”, takes place this week and will feature new AI health research. Whether the company addresses its recent retreats from AI medical features, or focuses on forward-looking announcements, will say something about how seriously it is reckoning with the risks.
Looking forward
The episode highlights a tension that runs through consumer-facing AI: the gap between what is technically possible and what is responsible to deploy at scale, particularly when health outcomes are at stake. Regulators in both the UK and EU are likely watching these voluntary pullbacks as they develop their own frameworks for AI in healthcare.