How the confident authority' of Google AI Overviews is putting public health at risk

"Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive, first set out the company's plans to enmesh AI into its search engine at its annual conference in Mountain View, California, in May 2024. Starting that month, he said, US users would see a new feature, AI Overviews, which would provide information summaries above traditional search results. The change marked the biggest shake-up of Google's core product in a quarter of a century."

"By July 2025, the technology had expanded to more than 200 countries in 40 languages, with 2 billion people served AI Overviews each month. With the rapid rollout of AI Overviews, Google is racing to protect its traditional search business, which generates about $200bn (147bn) a year, before upstart AI rivals can derail it. We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace, Pichai said last July. AI Overviews in particular were performing well, he added."

"But overviews carry risks, experts say. They use generative AI to provide snapshots of information about a topic or question, adding conversational answers above the traditional search results in the blink of an eye. They can cite sources, but do not necessarily know when that source is incorrect. Within weeks of the feature launching in the US, users encountered untruths across a range of subjects. One AI Overview said Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president, graduated from college in 2005."

Google introduced AI Overviews in May 2024 to place generative-AI summaries above traditional search results. The feature expanded to over 200 countries and 40 languages by July 2025, serving about 2 billion users monthly. The rollout aims to protect roughly $200 billion in annual search revenue from AI competitors. AI Overviews produce conversational snapshots and sometimes cite sources, but they can repeat or create falsehoods, as early examples included factual errors. Company leadership framed the rollout as rapid AI leadership, while experts warned about misinformation risks and the potential to undermine trust in core search results.

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