Google will switch off its AI products and Google Search by default for school pupils’ accounts, and schools that keep AI off will also lose Search, because Google is not offering schools a version of Search without AI.
The change, announced yesterday by Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager for education, covers Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search on K-12 student accounts, which run from the first years of school to the age of 18. The New York Times reported that the new defaults will take effect in early 2027.
In a blog post published yesterday, Phillips wrote: “Access to these products 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,” he wrote, adding that the decision followed feedback from “schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers”.
The post gives no start date. Google said it would “share more specifics with schools in the coming months ahead of the changes rolling out so they have time to prepare and enable a smooth transition.”
Phillips told The New York Times that “Search and A.I. are deeply integrated”, and that in a school that has banned AI, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”
Later yesterday, Google’s News from Google account posted a clarification on X. “Today’s announcements give schools more choice, not less,” it said, adding that schools “can choose to turn ON one, two, or all of these services individually.”
The same post said the Search on offer to schools would keep its AI features in a modified form: “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.” A school can therefore enable Search while leaving the Gemini app off, but cannot enable Search without AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Google will pilot Guided Learning in Search in selected US schools later this month. The same feature became available in Google Classroom worldwide yesterday.
New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, responded on X that “Google is trying to use its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools.” Senator Bernie Sanders described the move as extortion and Lina Khan, the former chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, said Google was trying to coerce schools into adopting AI, according to SiliconANGLE.
Last month, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley wrote to Google asking why its AI features were switched on by default on school devices. “Google is forcing their A.I. products into classrooms across America, and children are paying the price,” they wrote.
The link between Search and AI was already at issue before yesterday’s announcement. In July, Common Sense Media, a US non-profit that rates technology for children, gave AI Overviews and AI Mode its lowest rating, “Unacceptable Risk”, and recommended that Google switch both features off by default for school and minors’ accounts.
Its researchers ran more than 2,600 searches using accounts set up for 11 and 15-year-olds. The organisation said AI Mode completed all 180 homework assignments it was given, and that AI Overview identified clear warning signs of distress in 58 per cent of searches describing a mental health crisis, against a threshold of 95 per cent that it considers acceptable. Google told Mashable that the testing was “narrow and ambiguous”.
Ars Technica noted that schools wanting search without AI could move to providers such as DuckDuckGo, which lets users turn off AI features.
Google has not said whether the new default settings will apply to schools outside the US. Its blog post confirms that Guided Learning in Classroom is global, but gives no country detail for the new controls.
In the UK, lawyers have warned firms of growing legal exposure from AI tools, while a Lloyds survey found about a third of businesses plan to invest in AI this year. A LegalVision analysis of Companies House data found 3,183 new companies with “AI” in their names registered in the first nine months of 2026.
Jamie Young
Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk
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