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It’s one of the biggest problems with AI and education: Students can present a chatbot with any question, from the volume of a cylinder to the causes of the Civil War, and get back fully formed answers that are mostly correct.
“By default, we train AI models to be helpful assistants that can do the work for the user,” said Kevin McKee, a research scientist at Google DeepMind, part of the tech giant’s AI for Education research team. “But in education, in contrast, students need to do the work themselves in order to learn. Good pedagogy requires guiding students through that productive struggle.”
One of those “helpful assistants,” Google’s Gemini, is available to many American students on school-issued laptops. But now the company is rolling out changes that it says will push students to do their own work and have Gemini serve as the sort of personalized tutor that many AI boosters hope the technology can be.
These include turning off Gemini as a default setting within Google Classroom. When Gemini is turned on, it will operate in Guided Learning mode, a feature launched last year that walks students through examples and questions rather than simply providing the answer. Guided Learning will also replace AI overviews when students use Google Search on school accounts.
The goal of the updates announced Tuesday is to give schools and teachers more control and promote student thinking and learning, company officials said.
Earlier this year, Google caught many school districts off guard by turning on Gemini for all students as the default setting, Education Week reported. Microsoft and OpenAI gear their educational platforms more toward teachers and limit student use, though students can easily use ChatGPT on personal devices.
But districts that don’t want any AI on school devices will bear a cost: They will have to forgo access to Google Search.
The changes come as large school districts such as New York and Los Angeles are severely restricting student AI use, and parents are demanding more control over how their children interact with technology at school. The Trump administration is considering requiring schools to adopt limits or allow parent opt-outs as a condition of receiving internet subsidies. Amid this backlash, Google continues to push AI as a powerful tool for student learning and expand its hold on classrooms.
Google is “excited” that the changes “will promote that productive struggle and help students really learn what they’re seeking to learn,” said Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager of education. “If a school is not comfortable with that and simply wants AI off, then they have the choice to not have Search on at all.”
Phillips said AI is deeply integrated into Google Search and cannot just be turned off.
That integration has presented a huge challenge for student learning, said Eisha Bush, head of teaching and learning at Common Sense Media, an advocacy group.
“The likelihood of schools and students avoiding Google Search is really slim to none,” Bush said.
Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute says Google Search’s AI overviews and AI mode represent an “unacceptable risk” to students. Historically, Google has not allowed schools to disable AI overview, and turning off AI mode has required challenging technical workarounds.
The group rates Google Gemini K-12 as a “high risk” product. While it protects student data better than the consumer version and doesn’t pretend to be a friend, like some chatbots, Gemini often fails to provide age-appropriate responses and can easily be made to complete assignments, reviewers said.
Common Sense Media has not published a standalone review of Guided Learning. The original version of the feature launched last year shows promise, reviewers said as part of their overall review of Gemini K-12, but students could still get Guided Learning to do much of the work.
“It will complete homework assignments and essays, and the boundary between ‘helping’ and ‘doing the work’ is often unclear,” reviewers wrote.
Company officials said the version of Guided Learning that will be available through Google Classroom is more rigorous and has been developed with teacher input. Teachers can assign work through Guided Learning and review student chats to see how students approach problems and what questions they ask. Students will not be able to switch back into regular Gemini within Google Classroom.
The company will start testing the changes with a small group of U.S. schools this month and roll them out more broadly early in the new year.
Bush noted that regardless of updates Google makes within its Classroom platform, students will still encounter AI overviews on their personal devices and have easy access to other chatbots. And school district AI bans can only serve as a stop gap.
Students desperately need AI literacy, she said, and teachers need to assess student learning outside the confines of Chromebooks.
“We have to put pressure on companies to do better by kids and for kids and also make sure there is an urgency in helping students think critically and value their learning,” she said. “Ultimately that is what will lead to their own well-being.”
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
