Google Tells Schools: Keep AI Overview On or Lose Search
Google said schools that turn off AI Overviews for students will lose access to Google Search altogether. Parents, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Ed Markey have pushed back, while a former Google ethics staffer links the policy to recent antitrust cases.
Google said this month that schools that do not want its AI Overview feature shown to students must give up Google Search entirely. The company's policy covers its flagship search tool, which millions of students use during the school day.
Google is more than a search engine in classrooms. It is also a hub for sharing documents and turning in homework.
Parents push back
Many parents are furious. "Parents are angry," said Jodi Carreon, a mother in Southern California. "They're very angry."
Carreon runs Schools Beyond Screens, a parent-led group that wants limits on technology in the classroom. She was excited when she first read that Google would let schools turn off AI features for students. That changed once the search catch became clear.
Districts including Los Angeles Unified, Seattle Public Schools and New York City Public Schools recently agreed to bans on AI in the classroom. Google did not follow suit. Even advocates who want less tech in schools concede that losing the ability to "Google" something would cause problems for teachers.
Political criticism
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a post on X that Google is using "its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools." Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts wrote to Google's CEO demanding that the company reverse its policy.
Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that evaluates how teens interact with technology, recently gave AI Overviews an "unacceptable risk" rating. It cited unsafe content and false information, among other concerns.
The day after Google's announcement, parents in North Carolina sued the company. They say Google's Gemini chatbot helped their 13-year-old daughter plan her suicide and funeral on her school-issued Chromebook.
A court-case theory
Tracy Pizzo worked at Google for more than a decade before leaving in 2022, and much of that time was spent on education and ethical AI standards. She said the company's move baffled her, given the scrutiny of young people's AI use.
Pizzo has a theory. Big online publishers sued Google under antitrust laws, arguing that AI Overviews hurt their business and was a separate product from Search. A judge decided otherwise and dismissed the cases.
"The judge decided that Search and AI are an integrated product," Pizzo said. "Now if Google were to provide an off switch for schools only … that's evidence that they can be separated. And that undermines the win they just had in court."
Antitrust experts were not entirely convinced by the theory, but did not dismiss it altogether. Google did not answer questions about any link between its announcement and the antitrust cases.
The company instead pointed to its original announcement. "Our goal is simple: provide school leaders the control and confidence to use AI products in classrooms as they see fit," Google said there.
Hank Thiele, a superintendent in Illinois, is among Google's longtime partners who were surprised by the company's position.
