Common Sense Media says Google’s AI Search poses an “unacceptable risk” to students. Google cannot turn it off.

Common Sense Media concluded that Google’s AI-powered Search poses an “unacceptable risk” to young users and recommended that students stop using it entirely until schools can disable the AI features. The child safety watchdog found that AI Mode readily completed homework assignments for minors, repeated misinformation with an air of authority, and exposed children to generative AI experiences powered by Gemini models that are age-gated in every other Google product.

The problem is structural. Google launched AI Mode for Search last year and made it available to everyone immediately, including education accounts. There is no toggle to disable AI features while keeping Search accessible. Parents can block Google.com entirely for child accounts. School administrators could do the same for Workspace for Education users. But as Amanda Bickerstaff of AI for Education put it: “What are you going to say? That kids can’t search the web?” Google dominates classroom technology. It helmed a 1:1 device movement that put Chromebooks in schools across the US and now has millions of Workspace for Education users from kindergarten to postgrad.

“Google’s AI Overview and AI Mode are undermining kids’ education, supplying them with dangerous disinformation, and putting their very lives at risk,” said David Monahan of child safety nonprofit Fairplay for Kids. “If Google is not even willing to disable AI features for students, schools should stop using Google products altogether.” Google’s AI search overhaul has already drawn criticism for undermining the open web by replacing links with AI-generated summaries. In classrooms, the same design replaces the act of searching with the act of receiving an answer, which is the opposite of what education is supposed to teach.

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Google told Mashable that Common Sense Media’s testing was “narrow and ambiguous” and not an effective way to measure product safety. The watchdog tested consumer accounts, not education accounts, but Google confirmed that the AI experience is the same for all users. A German court ruled in April that Google is legally liable for the content of its AI Overviews, treating them as Google’s own statements rather than third-party results. If the same logic applies in the US, schools using Google Search may be exposing themselves to liability every time a student receives a hallucinated answer that Google’s design presents as fact.