How Google is using AI to improve health for everyone

Throughout my career in medicine, a central challenge has been connecting people — whether patients, families, trainees, or clinicians — to the right health information at the right time. Today at our annual health event, The Check Up, we shared how AI is helping to make healthcare more helpful, complex information more accessible, and clinician’s learning more impactful — all in collaboration with partners who are leading the way.

Partnering on rural health

Today we announced efforts for a series of AI initiatives aimed at making healthcare more accessible. As a part of this, we’re exploring work with leaders in Arkansas, including the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine and Heartland Whole Health Institute to help pioneer a model for rural health transformation.

We hope this work can serve as a blueprint for improving health outcomes nationally and globally by focusing on clinician education, care delivery and health research while building on our existing investments and collaborations in rural health. Nearly half of the world’s population lives in rural areas, contributing to the estimated 2 billion people in these regions who lack access to essential healthcare services — more than double the figure in urban areas.

Investing in clinician education

Having spent many years teaching at the bedside, I know today’s trainees will be the first to practice in a world fundamentally reshaped by AI. That’s why Google.org is committing $10 million to fund organizations that will collaborate to reimagine clinician education in the AI era, with the goal of improving high-quality, person-centered care. The Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the American Academy of Nursing are the first of several organizations who will support this work.

For us, that also means working to continuously improve products like Search where people ask more than a billion health questions every day. And it means using AI to make information more helpful and reliable, including for the next generation of healthcare workers.

On YouTube — where health-related videos have surpassed 1 trillion views globally — AI is creating new ways to support clinician learning. On eligible health videos, an “Ask’ button lets people interact with information more personally. A first-year medical student, for example, can ask to “explain this concept in simple terms,” instantly translating complex medical topics into accessible language they can understand and share with their communities.

We’re also experimenting with AI as a brainstorming partner to organize peer-reviewed scientific information and suggest ways to present complex information to broad audiences.

Providing more insights into your health with Fitbit

When it comes to understanding your own health, we’re bringing three updates to our Personal Health Coach in Public Preview: enhanced sleep tracking, advancing health research and the ability to link your medical records for a more comprehensive view of your health.

First, we’ve improved sleep stage accuracy by 15% and optimized our AI to better track interruptions and restlessness while providing improved nap support. Over the next few days, these updates will be available to all Public Preview users. And coming over the next few weeks, users will see a more precise Sleep Score to give you a clearer picture of your recovery.

Starting in April, you’ll also be able to connect a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) through Health Connect. You can then ask the coach how a specific workout or meal affects your glucose levels to better understand your metabolic health. This builds on our health research, including our pioneering study on predicting insulin resistance published in Nature and our ongoing hypertension using wearable data.

Finally, because a great coach needs the full picture, you’ll soon be able to securely link your medical records — including lab results and medications — directly to the Fitbit app. This allows the coach to provide personalized wellness guidance for complex questions, like how to improve your cholesterol, based on your actual clinical data. Your information remains securely stored, is never used for ads, and stays under your total control.