Google forces AI on US schools from 2027, districts that turn off Gemini lose Google Search too

Google will give US schools an ultimatum starting in early 2027: accept AI features for students, or lose access to Google Search entirely. The New York Times, which broke the story, reports that Gemini, Gemini Notebook and Search will all be switched off by default for student accounts — and schools can turn each on individually, except that search without AI will no longer exist as an option.

Chris Phillips, Google's vice president for education, told the paper that search and AI have become too tightly fused to pull apart. Schools that enable search will choose between two modes: full AI overviews with an AI chat, or 'Guided Learning', a mode designed to steer students toward answers rather than hand them over directly.

The timing is awkward. Google recently turned AI features on by default inside Classroom, its learning platform, for schools with Gemini access. That move drew backlash, and Google is now reversing course — by packaging AI with the one product schools cannot walk away from. Google dominates US education through Chromebooks, Gmail and Classroom, and the two largest school districts in the country, New York City and Los Angeles, had already pulled back on AI for students in September. Los Angeles in particular wanted to keep Google Search without AI overviews. Google will not allow it.

Education professor Morgan Polikoff called the move a textbook case of the tech industry shoving AI onto people whether they want it or not. Brussels has spent years litigating app-store tying and self-preferencing under the Digital Markets Act, while the same technique runs unchecked in a market where the customer is a school district and the product is a search box students have used their entire lives.

The districts that explicitly voted to keep AI out of their classrooms will get it anyway — bundled with the search they never asked to give up.