Within the span of roughly a year, Google launched and removed a feature that organized health advice from internet strangers using AI. “What People Suggest” was designed to complement expert medical search results with community perspectives but has since been discontinued. Three insiders confirmed its removal, and Google acknowledged it following media inquiries, though the company’s explanation fell short of full transparency.
The feature was introduced with fanfare at Google’s “The Check Up” event in New York. Then-chief health officer Karen DeSalvo described it as an innovation that addressed real user behavior — the desire to hear from others with shared health experiences. The AI-organized community content was made available to mobile users in the US as the initial rollout.
Google attributed the removal to a simplification of the search page and denied safety concerns played any role. When asked for its public communication about the decision, the company pointed to a blog post that contained no reference to “What People Suggest.” The disconnect drew criticism from health AI policy observers.
The story unfolds against a backdrop of mounting scrutiny over Google’s AI health products. An investigation earlier this year revealed that AI Overviews were distributing medically inaccurate content to billions of users every month. Google’s partial response — removing AI Overviews for certain health searches — was widely seen as inadequate.
At its next health event, Google plans to present new AI health innovations. But the rise and fall of “What People Suggest” will be part of the record that observers bring to those announcements. Progress in health AI cannot be measured by launches alone; it must be measured by how responsibly and honestly those products are managed from start to finish.