Google to switch AI tools off by default for school accounts

Google announced changes to its school products in a post by Chris Phillips, its vice president and general manager for education. 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”. Google said it would give schools more specifics “in the coming months ahead of the changes rolling out”, and the blog does not give a date. TechCrunch reported that the change is planned for next year.

The same post extends Guided Learning, the Gemini mode that coaches students through problems with questions and step-by-step breakdowns rather than direct answers. Starting that day it was globally available in Google Classroom, anchored in material a teacher assigns. In Search, for student accounts, it will begin as a pilot in select US schools later in November, with wider rollout to districts “in the coming months”. Google said its own research shows Guided Learning “leads to measurable learning gains”.

The consequence that drew attention is not in the blog’s headline. According to TechCrunch, Phillips told the New York Times that “Search and AI are deeply integrated”, so if a school chooses to restrict AI altogether, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.” TechCrunch’s reading was that schools wanting to keep Search will have to accept its AI features, and it noted Google’s weight in classrooms, given the prevalence of Chromebooks. This account of the lockout comes from the Times and TechCrunch’s reporting of Phillips’ remarks, not from the text of Google’s post, which describes the new setting only as administrators gaining control.

The announcement follows August launches of teacher-focused offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI. The change reverses the burden on schools, which would have to opt in rather than out, but the reporting says it also means a school wanting no AI at all would lose Search. No later change by Google to that arrangement is recorded in the sources used here.