Parents sue Google over teen’s suicide-related AI searches on school computer

The lawsuit, filed Monday in a California court, is believed to be the first known case accusing Google of negligence over AI integrations on Chromebooks — the low-cost laptops used by millions of students. The teenager, identified as Emma, could not access the Gemini app or ChatGPT because her school blocked both — but Google’s search engine, with its AI-powered features built in, was open to her.

Her parents learned of the crisis on March 17, when the school’s monitoring software flagged a document titled “Funeral” and notified them; her mother then found Emma writing a farewell letter in real time. Google told AFP it is reviewing the claims and takes them very seriously, and maintains its AI Mode has safeguards against self-harm — but the family’s lawyer said Emma “was able to keep going back over and over again,” and that whatever safeguards Google put in place “were obviously insufficient.”