Google tells employees: If you want health benefits, sign up with a third-party AI tool (www.businessinsider.com)

Google has told US-based employees that to enroll in Alphabet-provided health benefits during the next open-enrollment period they must grant a third-party AI tool from Nayya access to benefits-related data — and that employees who decline will effectively be ineligible for those plans. Nayya’s service uses demographic details plus optional inputs about health, lifestyle and claims to generate personalized plan recommendations and show things like deductible progress. Google says the tool passed its security and privacy reviews, that Nayya is required to protect HIPAA-covered data and won’t sell PII, and that employees can choose how much personal health information to share when using the voluntary recommendation feature. The announcement has prompted internal backlash, with staff calling the setup coercive and raising concerns about meaningful consent, sensitive medical data sharing, and transparency. The situation highlights a broader trend of employers deploying AI-driven benefits optimizers (Salesforce, Walmart and others have similar pilots), and raises technical and policy questions for the AI/ML community: what data is actually needed for accurate recommendations, how models are audited for bias and privacy risks, how consent is obtained and logged, and how third-party integrations are governed under HIPAA and corporate security reviews. The episode underscores the need for clearer data-minimization, explainability and opt-out mechanisms when AI tooling is tied to essential employee services.