Following a Guardian investigation that found Google’s AI Overviews surfacing potentially misleading information for certain health-related searches, the company appears to have quietly removed AI-generated summaries for some of the affected queries. The report highlighted cases where AI Overviews presented overly generalized medical reference ranges, without accounting for variables such as age, sex, ethnicity, or nationality—factors that are critical in interpreting clinical test results.
One example cited by the Guardian involved the query “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” which previously returned figures that could give users a false sense of reassurance about their health. According to a follow-up report, AI Overviews no longer appear for that query or for closely related ones like “what is the normal range for liver function tests.” However, the publication noted that alternative phrasings, including “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range,” were still capable of triggering AI-generated summaries at the time of its testing.
Independent checks conducted several hours after the Guardian’s latest article suggest Google may have expanded the removals further. None of the tested variations surfaced AI Overviews, although users were still prompted with an option to re-run the query using Google’s separate AI Mode. In some cases, the Guardian’s own reporting on the issue appeared as the top organic search result, underscoring how quickly the situation evolved.
In a statement to the Guardian, a Google spokesperson said the company does not “comment on individual removals within Search,” emphasizing instead that it focuses on “broad improvements.” The spokesperson added that an internal team of clinicians reviewed the highlighted queries and concluded that, in many cases, the information was not inaccurate and was supported by high-quality sources—though the broader concern about context and medical nuance remains unresolved.