Few noticed when Google quietly removed a search feature that had been organizing anonymous health advice from the internet using AI. “What People Suggest” collected community health perspectives from online discussions and presented them to users in themed summaries. Three insiders confirmed its disappearance, and Google’s subsequent acknowledgment left significant questions unanswered.
Introduced at Google’s “The Check Up” health conference in New York, the feature was pitched by then-chief health officer Karen DeSalvo as a way to make health search richer and more empathetic. She described the feature as a practical tool for users who want to hear from people with similar health experiences, not just from medical professionals. The feature was launched to mobile users in the United States.
Google’s spokesperson confirmed the removal, attributing it to search page simplification and denying any link to safety concerns. When pressed for a public announcement about the change, the company cited a blog post that contained no mention of the discontinued feature. The inconsistency has been criticized as a failure of transparency.
The wider picture includes an investigation that found Google’s AI Overviews were providing false health information to approximately two billion users monthly. Google’s limited response to that investigation — removing AI Overviews from some health topics — was seen by health professionals as inadequate.
Google’s next health event will bring new announcements about AI health technology. But the quiet removal of “What People Suggest” will be part of the record that observers carry into that event. For the company’s vision of responsible health AI to resonate, it will need to demonstrate not just capability but also the kind of honesty that the public has a right to expect when health is on the line.