Google enables Gemini AI for students using its Classroom App

This week, Google activated its Gemini chatbot for some K-12 students using its popular Classroom app, intensifying the race among U.S tech giants to familiarize students with their artificial intelligence tools.

Google Classroom, a learning management system used to post assignments and submit schoolwork, has more than 150 million users—including students and teachers—worldwide. Until now, Google automatically enabled Gemini in Classroom only for students over 18.

Now, a new Gemini tab within Classroom will allow students of all ages to seek AI assistance for solving math problems and completing writing assignments. They will also be able to generate support materials—such as study guides, quizzes, and flashcards—and create images.

In an email, Google explained that it made Gemini available in Classroom because this new setup would allow students to consult the AI regarding specific materials and assignments provided by their teachers.

Google noted that the AI-related changes in Classroom would affect only those schools that allow their students to access the Gemini app or Gemini Notebook, another company product. School administrators can enable or disable Gemini access for all students—the company stated—or for specific groups, such as students in lower grade levels.

Even so, school administrators have remarked that Google has made so many changes to its AI products for education that it is difficult for them to keep track of—or even know—which features are enabled or disabled.

“It feels like we’re the last to know,” said Derek Moore, Chief Technology Officer for the Palo Alto Unified School District in California, where high school students are permitted to use Gemini only for specific purposes authorized by their teachers. Google’s effort to expand student access to its AI tools intensifies the long-standing battle among tech giants like Apple, Google, and Microsoft to capture the classroom market and secure students as long-term customers. New players in the educational technology sector, such as AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI, have recently launched programs aimed at K-12 teachers. However, to date, neither OpenAI nor Anthropic has made their chatbots—ChatGPT and Claude—available to students in U.S. public schools.

The industry is pushing for the use of chatbots in classrooms, while parent groups in cities such as New York and Los Angeles—among others—are pressuring schools to temporarily halt the rollout of artificial intelligence (AI) products for students. These groups argue that AI chatbots could pose risks to children’s safety, privacy, and critical thinking skills. Some warn that using chatbots to generate study materials, such as flashcards or text summaries, could hinder student learning.

Google’s AI-related changes illustrate a long-standing power dynamic between consumer tech giants and the U.S. public education system. Tech companies often automatically enable new educational features for students; frequently, these changes require school administrators to take specific action to disable them, rather than requiring them to opt in voluntarily.

In interviews this week, several school district officials urged tech companies to allow schools to evaluate significant changes to student-facing AI tools beforehand and then decide whether to enable them.

“A school district shouldn’t accidentally adopt an AI platform simply because no one found the right checkbox six months ago,” said James O’Hagan, director of digital equity, innovation, and library services for the Glendale-River Hills School District in Glendale, Wisconsin. O’Hagan noted that Google had previously enabled another AI service, Workspace Intelligence, for client school districts—a move he criticized in a LinkedIn post.

“The default should be requiring permission, not automatic adoption,” he added.

This fall, Google plans to enable another new setting for students under 18 who are logged into their school Google accounts; this time, the move will affect its search services, according to a notice to school administrators released this week. This feature, known as “Personalised Search Recommendations Control,” allows the company’s search system to tailor suggestions based on data from the student’s Google account—such as “activity saved from Google sites and apps,” including location information—according to the company’s notice. For example, Google explained that the system could analyse a student’s past search queries regarding scientific topics to provide answers that are “more relevant to what the student is learning.”

In an email, Google clarified that the new recommendation setting would be activated this fall only for schools that had enabled its search services. After discovering the notice on Thursday, Mr. O’Hagan used Google’s school administration dashboard to disable the company’s search services, thereby pre-empting the new feature for students.