Google to switch off Gemini and Search for K-12 students by default

Services can be enabled one by one

Following a wave of criticism, Google clarified that schools can turn each service on individually. Search can be enabled while the Gemini app and Gemini Notebook remain off. What Google does not offer is a version of Search without AI Overviews and AI Mode. Instead, the company says those features will be adjusted to deliver "step-by-step guided learning through problems", so students don't receive quick answers to their schoolwork.

Guided Learning comes to Search

The approach builds on Guided Learning, the tutoring mode in Gemini that coaches students with open-ended questions rather than handing over the final answer. It will arrive in Search for student accounts as a pilot in select US schools later this month. If a student pastes in a physics problem or asks for help with a book report, Search will walk them through it step by step. Guided Learning is also available globally in Google Classroom starting today, as an activity teachers can assign.

What comes next

Google plans to share more details with schools in the coming months, ahead of the new controls rolling out early next year. Until now, Gemini was switched on automatically for schools using Google Classroom, a practice that drew criticism from parent advocacy groups.

For administrators, the change shifts the burden: AI access becomes an opt-in decision, but avoiding AI entirely now has a cost, since Search itself is part of the package.