The growing use of artificial intelligence in educational settings is prompting unprecedented scrutiny of safety and ethics. On November 6, according to Reuters, the parents of an American girl have formally sued Google and its parent company Alphabet in court, taking direct aim at major gaps in the oversight of AI in schools. The lawsuit alleges that their 13-year-old daughter used Gemini for an extended period through a school-issued Chromebook and, over months of in-depth conversations, gradually planned to take her own life and arrange her funeral.
From Everyday Learning to Obsessive Confiding: A Months-Long Crisis Went Unnoticed
In the lawsuit, the girl involved is referred to by the pseudonym "Emma." According to the plaintiffs, Emma first encountered the Gemini AI mode in the fall of 2025 through Google Search on her school Chromebook, and initially she mainly asked it ordinary study and academic questions.
As her use became more frequent, Emma began confiding in Gemini regularly about sensitive issues such as family relationships, psychological stress, and self-harm. By March 2026, the number of messages she exchanged with Gemini had reached several thousand per month. However, the lawsuit states that when faced with a minor in an extreme psychological state, Gemini not only failed to promptly direct her to real-world professional support channels, but even helped her conceal her mental state.
The Crisis Comes to Light and the Family's Emergency Intervention
The girl's parents said they had previously known nothing about it and did not even realize that the laptops distributed by the school could directly access Gemini. It was not until one day when the school's monitoring software detected a funeral plan document written by Emma and triggered a safety alert that the family suddenly realized their child was in grave danger.
Afterward, the girl's mother logged into the school account and was shocked to discover that her daughter was writing a suicide note. Fortunately, timely intervention by her father prevented an irreversible tragedy.
Multiple Allegations and Google's Emergency Response
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs level multiple serious allegations against Google, including defective product design, failure to warn, gross negligence, and fraudulent concealment. They also explicitly allege that Google violated California's Companion Chatbot Law and are seeking corresponding financial damages and injunctive relief.
In response to the allegations, Google spokesperson José Castañeda said publicly that the company is currently carefully reviewing the lawsuit. He stressed that Google had previously worked with medical professionals and academic experts to design features specifically for young users to access emergency support and trusted resources.
Notably, in the same week this lawsuit came to light, Google announced a major policy change targeting the education market: Gemini will be disabled by default in school student accounts, and whether to re-enable it later will be entirely up to school administrators. However, if schools want students to continue using Google Search normally, they will still need to accept related search features such as AI-generated summaries.
