Google makes school AI tools opt-in, clarifies search access

Google said Tuesday it will turn off its AI tools by default for K-12 students using its education software, leaving school administrators to decide whether to enable them. The announcement drew immediate criticism over whether schools that reject the tools would also lose Google Search. Google later said schools can enable Search separately.

Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager of education, said access to Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search “will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.”

“We believe schools should have control over AI in their classrooms and in providing administrators with controls to help them manage their approach,” Phillips wrote in a blog post.

The initial announcement led to reports that schools declining Google’s AI tools would lose access to Search because AI is now integrated into it. Phillips told The New York Times that if a school banned AI for students and educators, it “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available,” according to CBS News.

After NBC News published its report, Google said in a social media statement that the changes “give schools more choice, not less.” Schools can turn on Google Search without enabling Gemini products, the company said. Search will still contain AI features, including AI Mode and AI Overviews, that Google said have been updated to guide students through problems rather than give them quick answers to schoolwork.

The change follows criticism of Google’s decision earlier this year to activate Gemini in its Classroom app, allowing students of any age to access AI products unless their districts disabled them. Parent advocacy groups raised concerns that students could use the tools to do schoolwork for them. In an October open letter, 13 organizations, including the Digital Childhood Institute and Schools Beyond Screens, urged districts to turn off Gemini and YouTube access.

The search-access question drew sharp reactions. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told NBC News that Google had “prioritized its business interests over the education of our children.” Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, accused the company of trying “to strong-arm schools into using its AI products.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani accused Google on social media of “trying to use its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools,” CBS News reported. In September, New York City schools announced a one-year delay on student-facing generative AI for children in 2-K through eighth grade, affecting nearly 600,000 students, or two-thirds of enrollment.

Google also said its AI products, when enabled, will detect attempts to use them simply to get an assignment answer. Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Education’s SCALE Initiative say there are no high-quality causal studies of student AI use, according to NBC News; other researchers have warned that many studies have not measured whether AI improves learning.