On Tuesday, Google unveiled a new approach to AI in K-12 accounts: tools including Gemini would be disabled by default unless school administrators chose to activate them. The company presented the shift as a response to parents and teachers worried that AI can undermine learning and critical thinking.¹

But the apparent safeguard came with a high-stakes condition. Schools that turn off AI access entirely would also lose Google Search for student accounts, according to reporting on the policy.² The reason, Google education vice president Chris Phillips told the New York Times, is that “Search and AI are deeply integrated.”³

That linkage quickly turned a product update into a political fight. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called it an attempt to use “monopoly power to force AI into our public schools,” arguing that no corporation should dictate how children are taught.¹ Sen. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, described the arrangement as a threat to schools and “extortion.”³

Google answered the backlash by stressing that “schools are in control.” It said Gemini, Gemini Notebook and Search are off by default, and administrators can decide whether to enable them. The company also said it is redesigning Search’s AI Mode and AI Overviews to guide students through problems step by step rather than hand them quick answers.³

The central disagreement is not over whether schools should govern students’ AI exposure; both sides say they should. It is over whether that control is real when declining AI also means losing Search. For critics, the policy puts an essential classroom service behind an AI gate. For Google, it reflects a technical reality—and an effort to make AI-assisted search more educational rather than evasive.