Google Tries to Walk Back Controversial School AI Policy Following Political Backlash

On Tuesday, the internet and politicians responded in outrage to a New York Times report saying that Google would effectively ban students from accessing Search if their schools banned AI entirely under a new initiative. “Search and AI are deeply integrated,” Google’s vice president for education Chris Phillips told the New York Times, reportedly adding that if a school banned access to its AI services, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.” The report immediately drew ire. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently announced a ban on student-facing generative AI through eighth grade, said that Google was “trying to use its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools.” “No corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children,” Mamdani wrote in an X post. “Our public schools exist to serve students, not to grow the profit margins of Big Tech.” Now, Google is claiming that it was all a misunderstanding, while stopping short of directly addressing the central concern raised by the New York Times report: that schools can’t offer students access to Search without also giving them access to AI features. “We want to clarify what we announced today about our education services,” Google said in a post on X. “Today’s announcements give schools more choice, not less.” Under the new initiative, expected to take effect early next year, Google’s Gemini, Gemini Notebook, and Search will be off by default for K-12 student accounts. But schools will have the option to choose which of the three to turn on, and they will be allowed to “turn on one, two, or all of these services individually,” Google clarified. To give partial credit to Phillips’ original quote, Google’s Search experience is currently deeply integrated with artificial intelligence. “Google Search is AI Search through and through,” head of Google Search Elizabeth Reid said at the company’s annual I/O conference back in May. Gemini is increasingly baked into the experience through AI Mode and AI Overviews, which company executives say have enjoyed strong usage growth, although AI Mode’s lower ad monetization contributed to slowing Search ad revenue growth in Google’s latest quarter. So if schools do decide that they want their students to have access to Google Search, a range of AI functions will probably still be made available to them, regardless of whether Gemini or Gemini Notebook are banned. A recent AI risk assessment by Common Sense Media gave Google Search’s AI functions an “unacceptable risk” rating for kids and teens. The report found that AI Mode completed “100% of the homework assignments” researchers provided it in 180 tests, and sometimes gave wrong answers to queries “with the same confidence” as correct answers. The report also found that AI Mode and AI Overviews missed “clear signs of suicidal ideation,” reinforced and validated signs of psychosis, mania, and disordered eating, and even provided “step-by-step instructions for making deepfakes.” “What makes Google Search different from other chatbots or AI apps is that it is ubiquitous on children’s personal and school-issued devices, its AI features can’t be turned off, and its AI-generated answers often fail in ways that young users may not be able to detect,” the report says. The report was mentioned in a letter subsequently sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai from Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley, raising concerns about what they deemed an “aggressive push of AI products to children in schools.” Google said on Tuesday that it had heard the concerns and would be updating Search for schools accordingly. The company plans to begin piloting the changes in select U.S. schools later this month. “Specifically, AI Mode and AI Overviews will offer step-by-step guided learning through problems, so that students don’t get quick answers to schoolwork,” Google said in the X post.