Google will cut off Search for K-12 student accounts in schools that switch off its artificial intelligence products. The company said the search engine can no longer be separated from the AI built into it.
Four services will sit switched off by default for K-12 accounts: Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Search itself. They come back only when a district administrator turns them on explicitly, according to a Google blog post from Chris Phillips, the company's vice president and general manager of education.
Schools that restrict AI altogether will show students a notice saying Search is not available, Phillips told The New York Times, as reported by The Verge and TechCrunch. "Search and AI are deeply integrated," he said, according to TechCrunch. Administrators can still switch each service off or on separately, but the AI layer inside Search is not a setting they can pull apart from it.
The move reverses the default Google adopted in August, when it turned on its Gemini assistant inside Google Classroom. Google puts that app's global audience at over 150 million teachers and pupils. The company said it consulted schools, teachers, researchers and policymakers before revising its controls, and will give districts more details in the coming months before the rollout.
Google presented the shift as an expansion of school authority. A post from the company's news account on X said it will "give schools more choice, not less." Phillips wrote that the aim was to let school leaders use AI products in classrooms as they see fit.
Elected officials responded sharply. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called the coupling of Search and AI "extortion" in a post on X, The Verge reported. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote that no corporation should be able to dictate how schools teach children. Rohit Chopra, California's secretary of business and consumer services, said on X that big technology firms should not "strong-arm schools."
Google also rolled out Guided Learning, a study tool that asks students step-by-step questions instead of handing over an answer. It is available in Google Classroom worldwide from Tuesday. Google said it will pilot Guided Learning inside Search for student accounts in selected US schools later this month, with a wider district release to follow after educator feedback.
The new controls cover K-12 accounts. Districts that want to keep Search will have to accept the AI features bundled with it.