Google will let schools skip AI tools, but they have to give up search, too

While Google is trying to move beyond Chromebooks, the ubiquity of these devices has made the company's education products huge in schools. Now, Google says it will let educators choose whether to allow its AI tools in the classroom. However, blocking AI tools also means giving up search, leaving schools with a difficult decision.

Google's new overarching approach to AI in K-12 classrooms sounds good on the surface. After consulting educators, researchers, and lawmakers, Google has decided that schools using its education products will be opted out of AI tools by default. It will be up to administrators to manually enable them when these changes roll out in the coming months.

When you look at what Google considers to be an AI tool, the nature of the Faustian bargain becomes clear. The affected products are Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. There's no picking and choosing — you either allow all the AI or none of it.

This is actually consistent with Google's approach in the consumer space. Google executives have said in no uncertain terms that Google Search is AI search. Most searches now provide an AI Overview at the top, and the company is constantly coming up with new ways to nudge people toward the conversational AI Mode chatbot function. Google sees this as the future.