The Check Up with Google 2026

By Google

Categories: AI, Product

Summary

Google is deploying AI across healthcare at scale: 1 billion health questions daily on Search, AI-powered clinical assistants at the bedside, and $10M invested in reimagining medical education for the AI era. The company frames this as 'help for today, hope for tomorrow'—immediate patient empowerment paired with long-term research acceleration.

Key Takeaways

1. Google Search handles over 1 billion health questions daily, positioning search as a critical entry point for patient self-education and symptom navigation before clinical care.
2. Seattle Children's Hospital deployed Vertex AI + Gemini to build a Pathway Assistant that delivers clinical guidelines and research summaries at the point of care, reducing information latency for clinicians.
3. Google.org is committing $10M to partner with the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and American Academy of Nursing to redesign clinical training curricula for AI-native medical education.
4. Google is piloting rural health transformation models in Arkansas with the Alice Walton School of Medicine, focusing on clinician education and care delivery via AI to address access barriers.
5. Google DeepMind and Google Research are advancing drug discovery (Deep Somatic), diagnostic AI (breast cancer detection in UK), and weather prediction for health outcomes using foundational AI models.

Topics

• Generative AI in Clinical Decision Support
• AI-Powered Health Search and Patient Education
• Rural Healthcare AI Infrastructure
• Medical Education Curriculum Design for AI Era
• Drug Discovery and Molecular Biology AI Models

Transcript Excerpt

[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: Please welcome Google's Chief Health Officer, Dr. Michael Howell. [APPLAUSE] MICHAEL HOWELL: On behalf of everyone who works on health across Google, welcome to The Check Up, 2026. I'm Michael Howell, Google's Chief Health Officer. Today is all about how we're bringing the full force of Google to health and as we get started, I find that I am filled with optimism. I've been at Google since 2017, but for more than 20 years before that, I took care of patients, mostly in a...