Google removes some AI health summaries from Search
Google removed some health-related summaries generated by artificial intelligence from Search results after identifying cases where the information shown at the top of results could be inaccurate and potentially harmful.
The affected feature uses generative AI to produce short “overview” style summaries that aim to provide a quick snapshot of key information for a topic or question. These summaries appear above traditional links in some searches. In several health queries, some of the summaries presented information that did not reflect appropriate medical context, creating a risk that users could misunderstand the results.
One example involved an overview related to liver blood tests and liver function tests. The removed summary had appeared in response to a query asking about the normal range for liver blood tests and the normal range for liver function tests. The concern was that a simplified overview could lead a patient with serious liver disease to incorrectly assume test results were within a normal range and skip follow-up care.
Google removed the “liver test results overview” from results tied to that query while continuing to review the quality of health summaries shown in Search. The change focused on removing specific summaries rather than disabling the feature broadly across health topics.
The company’s current approach limits AI-generated overviews to searches where the system applies a high confidence threshold for answer quality, while quality checks continue across different information categories. These checks are designed to monitor how the summaries perform and to support updates where issues appear in high-risk topics such as medical information.
The update comes as AI-generated summaries become more common across consumer search products, including in areas where accuracy depends on context, such as age, sex, and individual medical history. Google has continued adjusting when overviews appear and which queries trigger them, particularly in categories where a short summary can oversimplify the underlying information.
