How generative AI Overviews are transforming healthcare information search

Google has long innovated how we interact with the web—both shaping and responding to consumer behavior.

Proof of Google’s massive influence on healthcare: According to our survey of 1,000 healthcare consumers, online search has, for the very first time, surpassed provider referrals in the process of choosing a new primary care provider (PCP). In fact, Google is the most used resource in the healthcare journey: Over 65% of consumers have used Google to find a new provider, while the use of Maps to find care has shot up 137%.

In the healthcare industry, it caused a seismic shift in how people make decisions about providers and organizations when it introduced the Local 3-Pack in August 2015. The Local 3-pack, or Local Pack, displays the three businesses that Google finds most relevant at the top of the search engine results page (SERP)—“above the fold.” This makes it easier for consumers to discover and access care, especially for the 35% who start their search by Googling the type of provider they’re looking for and “near me.”

Improvements in Google Search using AI and personalization

Over the last several years, Google Search has evolved to become more AI-driven and personalized.

Google has rolled out:

1. RankBrain and BERT: These technologies leverage the power of AI and search behavior of other users (RankBrain) as well as advanced neural networks to understand search intent (BERT). This lets Google surface and amplify better results.
2. Personalized results: Google tailors results just for you. For example, if you’ve visited a specific healthcare facility frequently in the past, it will feature that one over the others.
3. Zero-click results: Thanks to more detailed summaries, some users find the information they need without even having to leave the Google Search results page.

In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT and forever changed the landscape of information retrieval (i.e., how consumers search). ChatGPT leverages transformer technology (like BERT) to generate thoughtful responses more easily understood by consumers, especially for complex topics. Whereas BERT focused on providing more context and improving search especially in healthcare, ChatGPT focuses on providing fully formed responses to a user’s queries.

ChatGPT’s meteoric rise made it the fastest platform to reach 100 million users—faster than hyper-viral products like Instagram and, later, TikTok. Microsoft’s decision to add ChatGPT into its search engine function in 2023 further boosted its popularity and fueled growth. This integration even attracted new users, as it started to return better results for certain use cases.

Google, which had originally pioneered transformer technology, released a competitor: AI Overviews (originally called Search Generative Experience).

What are AI Overviews (previously Search Generative Experience), and what does this technology mean for healthcare?

This latest update makes Google more like ChatGPT (or its own AI model, Gemini). The chat-like interface relies on large language models to generate snippets citing your own website or trusted healthcare domains like Healthgrades, Vitals, and WebMD. This helps mitigate hallucinations and produces more accurate results and information that’s both reliable and easy to understand. (ChatGPT has since adopted a similar approach.)

So, how does this impact healthcare organizations?

In the new world of AI Overviews, your strategy can no longer rely only on Google Business Profiles to shoulder the burden of getting information in front of consumers. These AI-created summaries pull information (including reviews and photos) directly from your website and third-party sites. Therefore, healthcare organizations will need to take control of these third-party listings too.

Healthcare organizations must:

• Leverage structured data on their websites: Using Schema Markup throughout website content signals to the AI robots that the information is well-structured and can be leveraged for queries.
• Add physician reviews to their websites: In early testing of AI Overviews, summaries for physician reviews would often reference the provider’s own website before picking up information from key healthcare sites like Healthgrades and Vitals. Therefore, investing in a transparency solution can not only improve consumer perception and boost performance for these AI overviews.
• Partner with a consumer experience vendor: A strong healthcare partner network, including key sites like Healthgrades, Sharecare, Medical News Today, WebMD, Vitals, and RateMDs, should manage both listings and reviews.
• Leverage a multimedia content strategy: Prepare for tomorrow’s technology today. ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews will most likely start ingesting videos as well.

As AI Overviews continue to evolve and new players like SearchGPT get into the game, the quality of results generated for healthcare queries will keep improving. For consumers, this represents faster and better answers to their healthcare queries. And healthcare organizations can use this transformative technology to guide consumers to their websites and through their doors, as well as leapfrog the competition. 

Press Ganey can help you develop a consumer experience strategy and equip you with the latest tools to navigate this ever-evolving world. To speak with a CX expert 1:1, just reach out here, and a member of the team will be in touch ASAP.