Google Chief Health Officer Dr Karen DeSalvo says artificial intelligence will have as much impact as penicillin in transforming the way we practice medicine.

“Penicillin changed our conception about who we could help and save. And I think AI is similarly poised to do that if we are strategic,” Dr DeSalvo said.

Interviewed by hosts Dr George Margelis and Dr Louise Schaper on today’s new PULSE Podcast episode, Dr DeSalvo said there was an integral role for generative AI with opportunities to build capacity and augment care delivery.

Dr DeSalvo was interviewed following the release of the Impact on Health Report 2025 and discusses the company’s extensive influence on global digital health including the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold.

“The science and the AI is moving quickly, whether that’s the science around improving factuality and groundedness, or the science around multimodal technology, we can bring all that data together to do a better assessment or a “360”, if you will, of a person’s health.”

She held a leading role as national coordinator for health information technology in the Obama administration, and also served as the New Orleans Health Commissioner following Hurricane Katrina.

“I worked in public health at the local and the national level and now I’ve had a lot more exposure to global public health and unfortunately, a very similar theme rings through. They tend to be pretty under-funded and under-resourced. And this is one of the incredible opportunities of generative AI to be able to help with some of those capacity gaps.”

The episode “When a Nobel Prize is only one of your achievements” is available now on PULSE, the Podcast.