Mamdani accuses Google of using its monopoly to pressure schools over AI

How Google tied Search to AI

On Tuesday, Google said school administrators would be able to decide whether to enable AI features in software products for students, a change educators had long sought. But schools that choose to reject Google’s AI tools entirely will also lose access to its search engine.

In a comment to The New York Times, which first reported the decision, Google’s vice president of education, Chris Phillips, briefly explained the connection: Search and AI are “deeply integrated.” Google Search does use AI: its algorithms have long helped improve results, and the service now also includes new AI features. But the company’s explanation does not make clear why banning those features should also disable Search itself.

Before chatbots became widespread, AI in Google Search helped people find information but did not replace the process with a ready-made answer. Even the older featured snippets above search results took information verbatim from web pages and clearly cited the original source.

Now Google Search includes AI Overviews and a separate AI Mode. At the top of the page, users see a summary and a chat box: the system automatically assembles detailed answers even to narrow queries and presents them confidently, although AI often makes things up. Ordinary users and students may have little reason left to visit the original sources.

Why schools are wary

Parents and educators worry that ready-made answers keep children from developing critical thinking and learning to investigate questions on their own. Those concerns grow when students have access to a full-fledged chatbot such as Google Gemini. Several studies suggest that relying on these tools can harm critical thinking. Many school districts also do not want to give children access to technology that has become associated with making it easy to cheat on assignments.

AI in education has become one of Mamdani’s policy priorities. In September, he announced a one-year moratorium on the use of AI in New York City classrooms and called it the most far-reaching measure of its kind in the country.

Google remains the dominant search engine and, for most people, a gateway to the internet. The ability to cut students off from Search therefore gives the company significant leverage in its dispute with schools. Mamdani said Google is using its monopoly power to force public schools to adopt AI.

In 2024, a federal judge ruled that Google had illegally monopolized the search market and used its position to restrict competitors. The article’s author draws a parallel between that ruling and the company’s actions toward schools: in the author’s assessment, Google may be trying to force them to adopt AI so it can bring today’s students into its ecosystem and turn them into future customers.

Dataist’s take: the dispute is about more than AI features in schools. Google’s decision ties rejecting those features to losing access to the search engine schools use. The company has explained the connection only by saying Search and AI are closely integrated, while a court has already found that its dominance in the search market amounted to an illegal monopoly.