Saying that it believes “schools should have control over AI in their classrooms,” Google announced today that it will turn off access to its AI tools for K-12 student accounts. But there’s a catch: Along with those AI tools, it will also disable Google search functionality.

In a blog post entitled “Designing responsible AI for learning,” Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager of education, extolled the virtues of AI tools in “productive struggle,” which he described as “enabling students to be actively challenged without getting so overwhelmed that they give up.”

“That’s the philosophy behind Guided Learning,” Philips wrote. “In Gemini, Guided Learning acts as an interactive study tool that coaches students through the process of problem solving through open-ended questions and step-by-step breakdowns. Our research shows that Guided Learning leads to measurable learning gains for students, and we’re now bringing Guided Learning to more products.” Those products include Google Search and Google Classroom.

“After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search,” Phillips continued. “Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.”

It sounds like Google Search on student accounts can be re-enabled separately, but that also ushers AI back into the equation: Google said in the update that it is “building Guided Learning capabilities into Search for student accounts to help them work through problems without skipping straight to answers.” In other words, there is no search functionality on these accounts without AI intrusion.

Speaking to the New York Times, Phillips said “search and AI are deeply integrated,” and confirmed that schools can’t have one without the other: Students at schools that have turned off Google’s AI tools “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”

Phillips presents the policy as responsiveness and responsibility on Google’s part, but the reaction from educators is not entirely positive. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten told NBC that “Google has prioritized its business interests over the education of our children,” adding, “Instead of working with teachers and parents to uphold privacy and ensure their tools are safe and useful, it throws the baby out with the bathwater and bans access to the tools altogether.”

Fairplay, a non-profit that aims to protect children from “the exploitative and harmful business practices of marketers and Big Tech,” was somewhat harsher in its assessment. “Google’s attempt to strong-arm schools into using its AI products is likely to backfire,” Fairplay executive director Josh Golin said in a statement. “Schools should use this opportunity not only to turn off AI, but to teach students that ‘Google’ isn’t a verb, but the name of a surveillance and advertising company whose presence in schools has nothing to do with learning and everything to do with developing lifetime brand loyalty.

“Because AI isn’t safe for kids and undermines education and critical thinking, schools should turn off Google’s AI tools the minute that option becomes available. And rather than fret about losing access to Google search, schools should use this opportunity to help students find more privacy-protective alternatives for search, as well as ways to do more substantive research beyond search and click.”

Former FTC chair Lina Khan, who was right about Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, also weighed in, accusing Google of “using its search monopoly to coerce schools into adopting AI.”

“Multiple courts have found Google liable for violating antitrust laws, and this latest move shows it remains unchastened,” Khan wrote on X. “As the public increasingly pushes back against the use of AI in schools, Google is making clear it will punish those who don’t fall in line.”

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, a longstanding critic of oligopolies and corporate greed, said that “Google is trying to use its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools.”

Google is 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. Our public schools exist to serve students, not to grow the profit margins of Big Tech.

— @mayor.nyc.gov (@mayor.nyc.gov.bsky.social) 2026-11-03T22:58:02.432Z

As NBC noted, research on the impact of AI in education is still quite limited, and some studies purporting to show meaningful benefits have been found to be flawed. That makes the headlong rush into AI integration, championed by massive AI companies and pretty much no one else, so controversial and potentially dangerous. Trying to force AI into classrooms while the technology’s impact on mental health is an increasingly serious concern is audacious, and promises of more rigorous safety standards tend to ring hollow anyway: In October, the attorneys general for eight US states accused competing product OpenAI of ignoring its own safety warnings in pursuit of profit.

Google’s new policy on AI in schools comes just days after shares in Google parent company Alphabet took a hammering as the company’s AI Mode cut deep into its search business and revenue. I’ve reached out to Google for more information about the new educational policy and will update if I receive a reply.