Google says K-12 schools that turn off its AI tools will lose Google Search for students as well, according to The Verge, which cited an interview Google gave to The New York Times. In an education update Tuesday, Google said Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search will all be off by default for K-12 student accounts unless administrators actively turn them on. Schools won't be able to switch off only the AI features and keep Search running.

Chris Phillips, Google's vice president of education, told the Times that "Search and AI are deeply integrated." He said schools that disable the AI features "will not have access to Search," and students will see a message from their school saying the tool isn't available. The change comes a few months after Google made its Gemini assistant a default feature in Google Classroom, which more than 150 million teachers and students use worldwide. That move drew criticism amid reports of falling test scores and other concerns about how AI affects learning. Last month, lawmakers also pressed the company on the "potential harms" of bringing its AI products into classrooms.

Google is also trying to address concerns that students use AI to skip the work of solving problems themselves. It's adding its Guided Learning feature, which walks students through problems step by step, to the AI Overviews in Search. Google plans to start testing it in select U.S. schools this month. Even so, AI is no longer switched on by default, and schools that don't want it now have to give up Search entirely to keep it out.