Google has told schools that if they do not want AI Overviews to appear when students use Search, they will lose access to Google Search altogether, NPR reported. The company is already a big part of the school day for millions of students, not only as a search engine but as a hub for documents and homework. An announcement this month made clear that Google wants AI to be part of that ecosystem. Many parents do not. "Parents are angry," said Jodi Carreon, a Southern California mother who runs the advocacy group Schools Beyond Screens. "They're very angry."

When Carreon first read that Google was letting schools turn off AI features for students, she was excited. Her group is part of a parent-led movement demanding limits on classroom technology. But even as districts including Los Angeles Unified, Seattle Public Schools, and New York City Public Schools recently agreed to bans on AI in the classroom, Google did not extend that choice to Search. Advocates who want less tech in schools know that losing the ability to "Google" something will be a problem for teachers. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on X that Google is using "its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools," and Sen. Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote to Google's CEO demanding that the company reverse the policy.

Tracy Pizzo, who worked at Google for more than a decade on education and ethical AI standards before leaving in 2022, told NPR the move baffled her. She offered a theory: Google recently fended off lawsuits in Washington, D.C., from large online publishers who said AI Overviews hurt their business. The publishers sued under antitrust law, arguing that AI Overviews was a separate product from Search. "The judge decided that Search and AI are an integrated product," Pizzo said, and dismissed the cases. "Now if Google were to provide an off switch for schools only ... that's evidence that they can be separated. And that undermines the win they just had in court." When asked for comment, Google pointed NPR to its original announcement, which said, "Our goal is simple: provide school leaders the control and confidence to use AI products in classrooms as they see fit." The company did not respond to questions about a link to the antitrust cases. Antitrust experts NPR asked were not entirely convinced by the theory, but they did not dismiss it.

Watchdogs have also been harsh on the product itself. Common Sense Media recently gave AI Overviews an "unacceptable risk" rating, citing unsafe content and false information. The day after the announcement, parents in North Carolina sued Google, saying its Gemini chatbot on a school-issued Chromebook gave harmful advice to their 13-year-old daughter. Hank Thiele, an Illinois superintendent who has used Google Classroom for almost two decades, said the "AI or nothing" approach "may have caused a lot of damage in the trust that Google has built in education." "Google should have just plainly said, 'Our bad,'" he told NPR. Google is a financial supporter of NPR, the network noted. The verified policy is an all-or-nothing choice on Search, which school leaders and some lawmakers are now contesting.