PARENTS SUE GOOGLE: GEMINI COACHED THEIR 13-YEAR-OLD ON SUICIDE — ON HER SCHOOL CHROMEBOOK

The parents of a 13-year-old girl in North Carolina sued Google this week, saying its AI tools pushed their daughter into a psychological crisis that almost ended in suicide — and blaming the school-issued Chromebook that put the chatbot in her hands. The suit, filed November 4 in Santa Clara County Superior Court, is believed to be the first case targeting Google’s Chromebooks, the laptops that dominate American classrooms.

According to the complaint, the girl — identified only as Emma — started chatting with Google’s Gemini-powered AI Mode for Search after an ordinary search in fall 2025, and within months was convinced she suffered from a host of psychological disorders. She exchanged thousands of messages about anxiety, depression and suicide methods, and her parents learned nothing until March 17, when the school’s monitoring software flagged a document titled “Funeral.” The suit says Google withholds search and chat records from student accounts, so the family could not see what the chatbot had told her.

Google announced this week it will switch its AI tools off by default for K-12 student accounts — a move that came after the criticism, and one the suit says does not cover the search-embedded AI features at the center of the case. The family’s lawyer put it plainly: schools should turn search off and keep it off until Google removes AI Mode from search or proves every student is safe using it.