--- title: "Google Says Its Error-Ridden “AI Overviews” Will Now Give Health Advice" description: "Google's crappy \"AI Overviews\" regularly spits out dangerous and incorrect answers — and now it's being entrusted with health advice." date: "2025-03-20" modified: "2025-03-20" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/google-search-ai-overviews-health" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "ai overviews" - "gemini" - "Google" - "google ai" --- # Google Says Its Error-Ridden “AI Overviews” Will Now Give Health Advice ![Google's crappy "AI Overviews" regularly spits out dangerous and incorrect answers — and now it's being entrusted with health advice.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Google's crappy "AI Overviews" regularly spits out [dangerous]() and [incorrect answers]() — and now it's being entrusted with medical advice. In a [self-congratulatory blog post](), Google's chief health officer Karen DeSalvo claimed that "recent health-focused advancements on Gemini models" and "our best-in-class quality and ranking systems" will allow the [janky feature]() to "cover thousands more health topics." Troublingly, the update will include a new feature called "What People Suggest," which will provide health advice from amateurs around the internet. Though DeSalvo said the feature is available on mobile devices in the US, we weren't able to access it on either the Google app or the web. As [*Futurism*]() and [other]() [outlets]() have [extensively]() [documented](), Google's AI Overviews are cartoonishly bad at providing accurate information. From claiming that baby elephants can [fit in the palm of a human hand]() to suggesting you [put glue on your pizza](), Google's in-search AI has [consistently struggled]() to differentiate between fact and fiction in the nearly two years since [its launch](). Indeed, a [recent study]() from Columbia's Tow Center for Digital Journalism found that the search giant's Gemini chatbot got basic questions wrong an astounding [60 percent of the time](). "Our research shows that people often value hearing from others who are navigating similar health questions," a Google spokesperson said in response to questions about this story. "'What people suggest' helps people find this information in a more organized and helpful way. This feature has gone through rigorous testing and clinical evaluations by licensed medical practitioners, and it appears alongside authoritative health content on Search." Ironically, Google used to have hundreds of human employees whose jobs centered around health — but in 2021, the company [closed its health division]() and either [laid off]() or reshuffled the people who staffed it. Citing past failures at follow-through on [big-vision health tech projects](), dozens of experts who [spoke to *Bloomberg*]() last summer said they were concerned that Google's AI will give accurate and high-quality healthcare information — and there's been little in the intervening period to suggest that those anxieties have been assuaged. "If Google’s overall ambition is to completely disrupt the health-care industry, well, nobody in the big tech world has succeeded," Emarketer senior analyst Rajiv Leventhal told *Bloomberg* at the time. "Health care is a unique beast." We've reached out to Google to ask about how it plans to verify that the health information in its AI provides accurate and safe health responses. The last time we asked the company about AI Overviews, it told us that there "may not be a lot of high-quality web content available" for some questions, and as such, the feature will sometimes simply get it wrong. "We have guardrails and policies in place to protect against low-quality responses," a company spokesperson told *Futurism* a few weeks ago, "and when issues arise we use those examples to improve and take appropriate action under our policies." *Updated with comment from Google.* **More on Google AI:** [*Did Google Test an Experimental AI on Kids, With Tragic Results?*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()