'Google is making clear it will punish those who don’t fall in line': Google will turn off search for schools that ban AI
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Each school can do what it wants when it comes to restricting or banning AI. However, a new report from The New York Times report found that schools that completely ban AI will also lose access to Google Search, one of the most ubiquitous tools on the internet for finding, well, anything.
"Search and A.I. are deeply integrated," said Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google. He also explained that students "will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available."
Getting through college without access to Google sounds difficult, since almost everyone goes there when they need to learn something. Sure, Google alternatives exist, but for most people, an online search is still called "Googling."
As you might expect, Google's stance has drawn pushback. Lina Khan, former chair of the FTC, said to the NYT that Google is using its “search monopoly to coerce schools” into adopting its AI.
Obviously, Google is justifying this move by saying that AI is an integrated part of search as it stands now. And that might be true, but we had many, many years of Google Search without AI, so it's certainly possible to find content on the web without it.
"This latest move shows it remains unchastened. As the public increasingly pushes back against the use of AI in schools," Khan added. "Google is making clear it will punish those who don’t fall in line."
Two options for search inside school-issued accounts will launch in early 2027.
The first option will be search with AI overviews and AI chats, similar to the experience we use every day. The other will be search with Guided Learning , the student feature within Google’s Gemini chatbot. This feature is meant to guide students step-by-step without just giving them the answers. It is supposed to offer an experience similar to one-on-one tutoring.
Either way, we know it's possible to use search without AI, and if Google really wanted to, it could almost certainly allow schools to keep using its search engine without AI. We did it for years.
Will Google stick to its guns here, or will the company back down if there's enough backlash? After all, Google makes a lot of its money from search ads , and if It suddenly lost millions of students, that could hurt the bottom line over time.