Google faces backlash for tying school Search access to AI opt-in

Google told schools using its K-12 software on Tuesday that they will lose access to Google Search unless they opt in to the company’s AI tools. According to Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president for education, Search and AI are now so tightly linked that a school declining tools like Gemini will find its students locked out of Search altogether, shown a message explaining the block.

The announcement, made on a busy Election Day, drew immediate criticism from politicians across the spectrum. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called the move “extortion,” writing on X: “Google is threatening schools: if you stop your students from using AI, we will cut off your access to Google Search.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) accused Google of prioritizing forcing Gemini into classrooms over student success, while New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani argued no company should have the power to dictate how children are taught. Former FTC chair Lina Khan called the policy anticompetitive, citing Google’s history of antitrust rulings against it.

Roughly 50 million Chromebooks are already in schools, and Google Classroom serves more than 150 million users worldwide, giving the policy outsized reach. Educators worry that Search’s built-in AI Overviews already discourage students from working out answers on their own, and for the millions of students required to use Chromebooks and Google’s education tools, switching to a rival search engine isn’t a simple fix. Google says a new “Guided Learning” tool now in testing is meant to walk students through a problem — reviewing the rules for dividing exponents, for instance — rather than just handing them the answer.

Facing the backlash, Google said on X that it had already made its AI products off by default for student accounts, letting schools turn on Gemini, Gemini Notebook and Search individually. The company said it was responding to feedback from educators and would keep working with schools on more choice and controls.

Why it matters

The backlash raises the odds of closer antitrust scrutiny of Google’s reach into schools, and could open the door for rival search and classroom tools among administrators uneasy with the ultimatum.