Google has removed AI Overviews from search results for specific medical queries after a Guardian investigation revealed misleading information. The probe focused on health-related searches where the AI summaries provided incomplete details.
The Guardian reported that querying “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” returned numbers that failed to account for factors including nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age. This omission could lead users to misinterpret their results as healthy when they were not. Similarly, “what is the normal range for liver function tests” produced the same issue.
Following the investigation, AI Overviews no longer appear for those exact queries. The Guardian checked variations such as “lft reference range” and “lft test reference range,” which initially still generated AI summaries. However, several hours after the story’s publication, tests by TechCrunch confirmed that none of these variations displayed AI Overviews. Google continued to offer an AI Mode option for the queries. In multiple cases, the top search result was the Guardian’s article on the removal.
A Google spokesperson told the Guardian that the company does not “comment on individual removals within Search,” but emphasized ongoing efforts to “make broad improvements.” The spokesperson added that an internal team of clinicians reviewed the highlighted queries and determined “in many instances, the information was not inaccurate and was also supported by high-quality websites.” TechCrunch has contacted Google for further comment.
Last year, Google introduced features to enhance healthcare searches, including improved overviews and health-focused AI models.
Vanessa Hebditch, director of communications and policy at the British Liver Trust, called the removal “excellent news.” She cautioned, however, that “Our bigger concern with all this is that it is nit-picking a single search result and Google can just shut off the AI Overviews for that but it’s not tackling the bigger issue of AI Overviews for health.”
