Google launches MedGemma 1.5, MedASR to expand healthcare AI

Google launches two new healthcare artificial intelligence models, MedGemma 1.5 and MedASR for medical imaging and speech-to-text respectively, expanding AI in healthcare industry. Both models are now available for research and commercial use via platforms like Hugging Face and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.

These openly available AI models are designed to help developers build healthcare applications. Released under Google’s Health AI Developer Foundations programme, the models can be customised and fine-tuned for research and clinical technology projects. Google has advised developers to carefully test and adapt the models for specific medical use cases before using them in real-world settings.

What MedGemma 1.5 Brings

MedGemma 1.5 is the latest iteration of Google’s open medical AI model designed to work with both medical images and associated text. Unlike earlier versions that focused mainly on 2D images, MedGemma 1.5 adds support for high-dimensional medical imaging, including 3D CT scans, MRI volumes, and whole-slide histopathology images, letting developers input multiple slices or image patches for analysis.

In addition to imaging upgrades, MedGemma 1.5 also demonstrates enhanced performance on medical text tasks such as question-answering and electronic health record interpretation, thanks to new training datasets and techniques.

MedASR: Speech-To-Text For Healthcare

The MedASR is a speech recognition model excels with specialised healthcare vocabulary, offering lower error rates than general-purpose speech-to-text models and enabling developers to turn spoken medical information into text, which can then be used as input for MedGemma or other workflows.

Open Access And Usage

With MedGemma 1.5 and MedASR, Google is pushing forward in healthcare AI by providing multimodal tools that support complex medical imaging and domain-specific speech data. Their availability as open, scalable models is likely to accelerate innovation in diagnostic support, clinical workflows, and medical research tools, even as developers ensure suitable validation and adaptation for real-world healthcare environments.

Recent AI Developments In Health

Recently major AI platforms like Anthropic and Open AI also introduced their AI models for healthcare. Open AI’s ChatGPT launched  Health tab to answer health and wellness related questions designed in collaboration with physicians. Anthropic introduced Claude for Healthcare, alongside expanded capabilities for Claude for Life Sciences, and positioned the model as a research and operational assistant across clinical care, clinical trials, and regulatory workflows.