Google to partner with NHG Health on AI-powered health coach

SINGAPORE - Tech giant Google is partnering NHG Health on an artificial intelligence-enabled health coach that will provide users with personalised lifestyle guidance and preventative care reminders, as part of an initiative to use AI to advance preventative healthcare here.

To be available via the NHG Healthbot – the health cluster’s chatbot on messaging platform WhatsApp – users may soon be able to use the coach to suggest healthier meals or places to exercise near them, for example, drawing on the tech giant’s services such as Google Maps.

This was announced at the inaugural Google for Health Summit, held at the tech giant’s office at Mapletree Business City on Oct 29.

The service will first be available to a select group of users in the first quarter of 2027 as part of a nine-month long proof-of-concept study, said NHG Health population health chief operating officer Ong Jing Fang.

This group will include those who are eligible for Healthier SG but have not yet gone for screenings under the national preventive health initiative, she said.

This is to encourage them to go for these screenings and better understand their reasons for not doing so.

Ong noted the group will also include seniors, with the health coach able to provide virtual frailty assessments as well as guidance on diet and exercise, as part of frailty prevention efforts.

The service will be available in all four national languages, with users also able to tap on the health coach using voice messages.

This initial group could include as many as a few thousand users, who will be brought onboard neighbourhood by neighbourhood, she said.

Should the health coach prove successful, the aim is eventually make it available beyond NHG Health’s ambit in northern and central Singapore, Ong added.

“We do want to go national if possible, to extend it to everybody in Singapore,” she said, noting this could be done by including it as part of national digital healthcare platform HealthHub.

The health coach will draw on insights from a predictive model which combines NHG Health’s population health database with data from Google on areas such as environmental and behavioural patterns.

This model aims to forecast health risks such as chronic diseases and frailty, at a population level, to enhance Singapore’s preventive health efforts using artificial intelligence.

Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How, who spoke at the event, said the collaboration between NHG Health and Google could potentially help create a health system that can reach out to people “before problems become crises”.

“It will explore whether predictive insights can identify health risks earlier, and whether an AI-enabled health coach can provide more personalised preventive guidance while directing clinically sensitive or urgent issues towards appropriate care channels,” said Tan, who is also Senior Minister of State for Health.

NHG Health group chief executive Joe Sim said the initiative would help drive preventive health efforts here.

“By bringing data and intelligence together, we can better understand the individual residents behind the data, reach them earlier, and turn every interaction into a personalised and targeted opportunity to help residents in central and north Singapore take charge of their health with good outcomes,” he said.

Google Singapore country managing director Ben King said the true power of AI lies in “solving complex societal challenges”, including healthcare.

“With Singapore’s rapidly ageing population, we see tremendous potential for this technology to accelerate medical breakthroughs and support clinicians on the frontline to help citizens live longer, healthier lives,” he said.

A slew of other initiatives was also announced at the summit, which followed the announcement of the National AI Partnership between Google and the Government in May.

Google Research, the tech giant’s research arm, will launch a new research hub here, with a team of research scientists and software engineers focused on advancing foundational AI efficiency.

The hub will also work with local academic institutions such as the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University to cultivate local scientific talent and provide targeted research support.

Google Research will also scale up its existing health research initiatives, such as bringing MedGemma – a medical-focused AI model – to frontline care settings here to enable the development of secure, customised AI solutions.

As part of its global AI co-clinician research initiative, Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s AI subsidiary, is working with National University Health System (NUHS) to explore how AI can augment clinicians’ capabilities and enable new models of care in the longer term.

The AI tool will assist doctors with clinical queries, drawing on existing clinical guidelines and medical literature.

The study will assess the accuracy, safety and usefulness of the tool’s responses, with clinicians independently evaluating these responses against established clinical criteria.

And as part of broader workforce skilling efforts, Google is also introducing its Google AI for Healthcare Professionals Certificate, an online programme which seeks to equip healthcare workers to use the technology for administrative tasks and continuous learning.

Google is also contributing US$7 million ($8.9 million) to the Philanthropy Asia Alliance’s Health for Human Potential Coalition, which aims to tackle infectious diseases and preventable deaths across South-east Asia.

Of this amount, US$1 million will go towards supporting PathGen, an AI powered platform that aims to more rapidly detect emerging disease threats across the region.