Recently, at the Lake Nona Impact Forum, which focuses on advancing global health, I had the opportunity to discuss the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in significantly enhancing healthcare and advancing scientific research. Our latest breakthroughs in AI present unparalleled opportunities to make healthcare more accessible, personalized, and effective for everyone, as well as to substantially accelerate scientific discovery. Below is an update on our progress, including how we are collaborating with partners to integrate AI into global healthcare settings and our newly announced AI co-scientist initiative.
Enhancing Access to Accurate Health Information through AI
Google is often the first point of reference for individuals seeking answers to health-related questions. Therefore, we are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to relevant, high-quality health information when they need it. By utilizing Google Lens, individuals can take a picture to search for skin conditions that resemble what they see on their own skin. Additionally, on YouTube, we have piloted AI tools in collaboration with health creators and organizations like the Cleveland Clinic, making it easier for them to publish authoritative, high-quality content.
Paving the Way for Personalized Healthcare with Generative AI
Advancements in multimodality and conversational AI enable us to reimagine patient care, focusing on personalization and preventive healthcare for everyone.
Medicine is inherently multimodal, ranging from X-rays to digital health records. Building on our MedLM research, we developed Med-Gemini, next-generation models for healthcare that leverage Gemini’s superior multimodal and reasoning capabilities, fine-tuned on de-identified medical data. In published research, Med-Gemini achieved 91.1% accuracy on U.S. medical exam-style questions, demonstrating its ability to interpret 3D scans and answer complex clinical questions effectively.
We are also researching the potential of AI systems as conversational diagnostic partners in clinical settings, utilizing Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer (AMIE), a research AI system optimized for diagnostic reasoning and conversations. AMIE is designed to take a “clinical history” and ask intelligent questions to help derive a differential diagnosis, handling discussions with empathy, including in subspecialist domains.
Furthermore, mobile and wearable devices present a promising area where generative AI models could provide personalized insights for both healthcare and wellness, using data such as step count and heart rate. We designed the Personal Health Large Language Model, another fine-tuned version of Gemini, which can interpret sensor data and generate insights and recommendations about an individual’s sleep and fitness patterns.
AI’s Role in Improving Global Health Outcomes
Early disease diagnosis is crucial for improving health outcomes. Over the past decade, we have leveraged AI’s imaging and diagnostic capabilities, developing AI models to help detect diseases including breast cancer, lung cancer, and diabetic retinopathy. Through partnerships, we are now bringing these solutions to clinical settings at scale, enabling more patients to benefit from timely and accurate screenings. The impact is particularly significant in low-resource medical settings and countries with fewer specialist doctors per capita. Over the next decade, our health-tech partners in India and Thailand aim to deliver 6 million diabetic retinopathy screenings at no cost to patients, and Apollo Radiology International will build on our AI models to provide 3 million free screenings across India for tuberculosis, lung cancer, and breast cancer. Adding to our initiatives addressing maternal health in Africa, we are developing an ML model for cardiotocography, used to predict fetal well-being, and exploring its utility in medical settings with limited resources.
We are also laying the technological foundations for broader access to healthcare. Our Health AI Developer Foundations include open-weight models and resources to help developers build AI models for healthcare more efficiently. Solutions powered by our Open Health Stack (OHS), a suite of open-source tools making it easier for developers to create next-gen digital health solutions for healthcare workers, have already been deployed across regions in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, supporting frontline healthcare workers serving millions of patients.
AI’s Impact on Accelerating Scientific Discovery
Medicine is rooted in science. Leveraging AI’s ability to synthesize information and perform complex reasoning tasks, we are exploring how AI can augment scientific and biomedical discovery through our work on AI co-scientist, a multi-agent AI system based on Gemini 2.0. The AI co-scientist is designed to function as a collaborative tool for scientists, intended to uncover new, original knowledge and help scientists formulate novel research hypotheses and proposals, building upon prior evidence and tailored to specific research objectives. It has already demonstrated potential in areas such as drug repurposing for acute myeloid leukemia, proposing hypotheses for novel treatment targets for liver fibrosis, and explaining mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer underlying antimicrobial resistance — each presenting a different set of challenges.
We continue to realize the incredible potential of AI to advance science and improve, personalize, and democratize access to healthcare. The “magic cycle” where we achieve research breakthroughs and translate them into real-world impact is accelerating and expanding in scope. We will pursue this opportunity responsibly, in collaboration with global partners, and continue to share our research. In 2024, we published over 50 papers sharing cutting-edge health research, and we recently shared our 2025 Health Impact Report. Ultimately, we believe AI will continue to help advance healthcare and science for the benefit of billions of people.
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