Students using Google software in the classroom will not be allowed to access the company’s search engine unless their school system also opts in to using artificial intelligence, the tech giant said Tuesday.
The Mountain View, California, company has been facing pushback from educators, child development experts and parents over the use of its technology in schools, with the backlash heating up since it announced in August that it had turned on its Gemini chatbot for many K-12 students who use Google Classroom.
On Tuesday, the company said that practice would no longer be the default option for school administrators. Instead, K-12 schools will be able to individually turn each Google tool on or off — including Gemini, Gemini Notebook and search, with each being off by default until administrators turn it on. But because search is integrated with AI, schools that opt out of AI altogether would also lose access to Google search.
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