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

To be available via the NHG Healthbot – the health cluster’s chatbot on messaging platform WhatsApp – the coach can suggest healthier meals or nearby exercise spots for users, drawing on the tech firm’s services such as Google Maps.

This was announced at the inaugural Google for Health Summit at Google’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 proof-of-concept study, said NHG Health population health chief operating officer Ong Jing Fang.

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

This is to encourage them to undergo screening and better understand their reasons for not doing so.

Ong noted that the group will include seniors, with the health coach providing 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 official languages, and users can interact with the health coach using voice messages.

This initial group could include up to a few thousand users, who will be brought on board, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, she said.

Should the health coach prove successful, the aim is to 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 that combines NHG Health’s population health database with Google’s information 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 AI.

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 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 front line to help citizens live longer, healthier lives,” he said.

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

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

The hub will work with 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 medically focused AI model – to front-line care settings here to develop 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 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 guidelines and medical literature.

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

As part of broader workforce skilling efforts, Google is introducing its Google AI for Healthcare Professionals Certificate, an online programme that will help healthcare workers use the technology for administrative tasks and continuous learning.

Google is also contributing US$7 million (S$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 detect emerging disease threats across the region more rapidly.