Google was met with swift backlash on Tuesday after it announced that schools using Google’s K-12 software will not be able to use Search unless they opt in to using AI tools.
Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google, told The New York Times that “Search and AI are deeply integrated,” so if a student’s school doesn’t opt in to using AI tools like Gemini, then students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”