In a move prompted by a Guardian investigation, Google has disabled top-level AI Overviews for certain health queries and removed some health summaries from search results. The Guardian reported that the AI produced inaccurate liver test norms at the top of results and, in a separate pancreatic cancer example, advised patients to avoid high-fat foods, which contradicts medical guidance and could harm patients.
Specifically, Google disabled queries like “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” while the liver-related summaries were deactivated, but other potentially dangerous responses remain accessible. The Guardian found that the results often displayed raw data tables of enzyme values (ALT, AST, and alkaline phosphatase) without clinical context and did not adjust for age, sex, or ethnicity, risking misinterpretation by patients with serious liver disease.
Experts from the British Liver Trust and other researchers said that liver function tests are complex and cannot be reduced to simple numbers; normal ranges vary by demographic factors. Vanessa Hebditch commented that the AI Overviews’ lack of caveats could mislead users into believing they are healthy and skip needed care.
Google told The Verge that it invests in AI Overviews’ health content quality and that the vast majority of information is accurate. The company said clinicians reviewed shared content and found that, in many cases, the material was supported by high-quality sources. Google did not comment on the Guardian’s specific liver-test findings.
