Google Removes AI Overviews for Certain Medical Queries

According to an investigation by The Guardian, Google's AI Overviews have been providing misleading information in response to certain health-related queries. The tech giant appears to have since removed AI-generated summaries for these specific searches.

For instance, The Guardian initially reported that when users asked, "What are the normal ranges for liver function blood tests?", they were presented with numerical values that did not account for factors such as nationality, gender, race, or age. This could lead individuals to mistakenly believe their test results were within a healthy range when, in fact, they might not be.

Now, The Guardian notes that AI Overviews have been removed from search results for both "what are the normal ranges for liver function blood tests" and "normal range for liver function tests." However, variations of these queries—such as "lft reference range" or "lft test reference range"—can still trigger AI-generated summaries.

This morning, shortly after The Guardian published its report, I tested these queries and found none displayed an AI Overview. Nevertheless, Google still offered the option to ask the same questions in AI mode. In several cases, the top result was actually The Guardian’s own article about the removals.

A Google spokesperson told The Guardian the company does not comment on individual removals from Search but is committed to "making broad improvements." The spokesperson added that an internal team of clinicians reviewed the queries highlighted in the report and concluded that "in many cases, the information was not inaccurate and was supported by high-quality websites."

Last year, Google announced new features aimed at enhancing its search experience for healthcare-related use cases, including improved overviews and a health-focused AI model.

Vanessa Hebditch, Director of Communications and Policy at the British Liver Trust, told The Guardian that the removal of these AI summaries is "good news," but emphasized that "our greater concern is that this approach only addresses individual search results. Google can switch off one AI Overview, but that doesn’t resolve the broader issues surrounding health-related AI summaries."