• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

1

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
TechAI

Google wants its A.I. to transform health care next, as it partners with the Mayo Clinic, report says

By
Rachel Shin
Rachel Shin
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Rachel Shin
Rachel Shin
Down Arrow Button Icon
July 10, 2023, 1:30 PM ET
Doctor with robot
What can A.I. really do for doctors?Getty Images

Doctors have been using A.I. like ChatGPT for various tasks including doing tedious paperwork, predicting health problems, and even improving their bedside manner, but what about a large language model (LLM), trained on medical exams, that can help them with diagnoses? Google is hoping to take A.I. into the health care mainstream with a new, medicine-specific chatbot called Med-PaLM 2, that it’s been testing since April, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. 

Recommended Video

Med-PaLM 2 is an LLM that answers medical questions, organizes information, and can synthesize various modes of data including images and health records, according to Google’s website. Google, also the maker of the chatbot Bard, trained Med-PaLM 2 on medical licensing exams, and unsurprisingly it is the first A.I. to have produced passing answers for U.S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE)–style questions. Questions in the USMLE style present a patient scenario that lists symptoms, medical history, age, and other descriptors, and asks questions such as what complication is most likely. Med-PaLM 2 was able to provide long-form answers to these questions, in addition to selecting from multiple choices. 

OpenAI’s GPT-4, ChatGPT’s successor, scored similarly to Med-PaLM 2 on medical exam questions, despite not being specifically trained on the exams. However, both technologies are still not reliable enough for high-stakes use in health care. 

“I don’t feel that this kind of technology is yet at a place where I would want it in my family’s health care journey,” Greg Corrado, a senior research director who worked on Med-PaLM 2 told the Wall Street Journal.

Google is currently piloting Med-PaLM 2 at the research hospital Mayo Clinic, and has not announced when the chatbot could be released to the general public. Hospitals are already using ChatGPT—and have been almost immediately after its release—and not just for quick medical questions. Doctors are using A.I. less like an encyclopedia and more like an assistant, even asking the chatbot how to conduct difficult interactions, such as interventions for those struggling with addiction. 

Using A.I. templates to communicate with patients may seem like an insufficient substitution for human connection, but Med-PaLM 2’s responses to medical questions were actually preferred to real doctors’ responses, according to research published by Google in May. Physicians compared A.I.-generated responses to human-written responses on nine verticals, and preferred the A.I.’s answers in eight of the nine.

Despite the possibly higher quality of some A.I. answers, a 2018 survey found that the majority of patients prioritize compassion in medical care, and would pay a higher fee for a more compassionate experience. A.I. fundamentally cannot provide compassion, but its use in creating scripts for an improved bedside manner seems to be facilitating smoother or gentler doctor-patient conversations. 

Still, many are wary that integrating A.I. into medicine too quickly and without regulation could have disastrous consequences. A.I. often has “hallucinations,” in which it states false information as fact, which could lead to false diagnoses or treatments if not carefully checked by a person. Moreover, A.I. has the potential to replicate and amplify bias already ingrained in the health care system if not trained correctly. The World Health Organization released a statement in May calling for a very cautious introduction of A.I. into medicine.  

“Precipitous adoption of untested systems could lead to errors by health care workers, cause harm to patients, erode trust in A.I., and thereby undermine (or delay) the potential long-term benefits and uses of such technologies around the world,” the WHO wrote.

There’s also the question of how patient data will be used if input into hospital A.I. Google and Microsoft both did not train their algorithms on patient data, but each hospital could train their A.I. on patient data in the future. Google has already started using patient data from Mayo Clinic’s Minnesota headquarters for specific projects. 

Patient data would generally be encrypted and inaccessible by the company, Google said, but the tech giant has caused controversy with its use of health care data in the past. In 2019, Google launched an initiative called “Project Nightingale” in which it collected medical data from millions of Americans across 21 states without their consent. The data included patient names and other identifying information, diagnoses, lab results, and records. It was used internally by Google without doctor or patient knowledge to provide a service to a business partner under a Business Associates Agreement.

“Careful consideration will need to be given to the ethical deployment of this technology including rigorous quality assessment when used in different clinical settings and guardrails to mitigate against overreliance on the output of a medical assistant,” Google wrote in its report on Med-PaLM. 

Google did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Join our exclusive webinar on May 28, featuring tech leaders from Orange, Mars, Reckitt, and Saint-Gobain. Apply to attend and receive Fortune’s editorial takeaways.
About the Author
By Rachel Shin
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

How Grab’s CTO sees the superapp’s push into physical AI and automated driving—and why he uses his competitors’ robots in the office
AITransportation
How Grab’s CTO sees the superapp’s push into physical AI and automated driving—and why he uses his competitors’ robots in the office
By Angelica AngMay 22, 2026
16 minutes ago
Trump AI and crpto czar David Sacks sits next to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a dinner table in the White House as Zuckerberg turns to Sacks and says something.
AIAmerican Politics
Tech billionaires convinced Trump to back off an AI executive order. But much of MAGA favors AI regulation
By Jeremy KahnMay 22, 2026
32 minutes ago
James Daunt sits in a booksop, gesturing with both hands and smiling.
AIbooks
Barnes & Noble CEO clarifies the bookseller’s stance on AI-written books after refusing to ban them: ‘This is a straightforward rejection of AI books’
By Sasha RogelbergMay 22, 2026
2 hours ago
A photo taken during the Maroon Bells bicycle ride during Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2019 in Aspen, Colorado. (Photo: Fortune)
InnovationBrainstorm Tech
Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2026 will be brilliant
By Andrew NuscaMay 22, 2026
3 hours ago
satya nadella
AITech
Microsoft reports are exposing AI’s real cost problem: Using the tech is more expensive than paying human employees
By Jake AngeloMay 22, 2026
4 hours ago
Sam Altman standing in a lift.
AIOpenAI
The big questions looming over OpenAI’s trillion-dollar IPO
By Beatrice NolanMay 22, 2026
4 hours ago

Most Popular

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
Success
Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
By Preston ForeMay 21, 2026
1 day ago
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
Success
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
By Preston ForeMay 20, 2026
2 days ago
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
Workplace Culture
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
3 days ago
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
Workplace Culture
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
By Sydney LakeMay 20, 2026
2 days ago
McKinsey partner says up to 50% of work hours could be transformed within the next 5 years
AI
McKinsey partner says up to 50% of work hours could be transformed within the next 5 years
By Emma BurleighMay 21, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of oil as of May 21, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 21, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 21, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.