According to The Wall Street Journal, Google’s Med-PaLM 2, an AI tool specifically designed to address medical queries, has been undergoing testing since April at renowned research institutions such as the Mayo Clinic. Med-PaLM 2 is an iteration of PaLM 2, which was introduced during Google I/O in May of this year. PaLM 2 serves as the language model underlying Google’s Bard.

The WSJ, having accessed an internal email, revealed that Google believes its updated model could prove especially beneficial in countries where access to healthcare professionals may be limited. Med-PaLM 2 was trained using a carefully curated collection of expert medical demonstrations, leading Google to anticipate that it will outperform more generalized chatbots like Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT in healthcare-related conversations.

The development of Med-PaLM 2 represents a significant step forward in enhancing the quality and accessibility of medical information.