CHICAGO — Chicago parents are pushing back on Google’s announcement last week that K-12 school districts will lose access to its search engine if they switch off all the company’s AI tools. Dozens gathered outside Google’s sleek Fulton Market office Wednesday, raising hand-painted signs and chanting as the rain beat down. “The whole point of going to school is to be learning from actual ...

Students, teachers and parents gather across the street from a Google office to protest the company's policy that K-12 schools could not access Google Search unless they also enable features like AI Overview and Gemini, in the 300 block of North Morgan Street on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, in Chicago.

John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — Chicago parents are pushing back on Google’s announcement last week that K-12 school districts will lose access to its search engine if they switch off all the company’s AI tools.

Dozens gathered outside Google’s sleek Fulton Market office Wednesday, raising hand-painted signs and chanting as the rain beat down.

“The whole point of going to school is to be learning from actual people,” said 16-year-old Reese Mackey, a junior at Kenwood Academy High School. “I don’t want to learn from a bot.”

Google said last week it would turn its Gemini chatbot and other AI tools off for school districts unless administrators opt in, reversing an August decision that had made those services automatic.

But the catch? AI functions embedded in Google Search, including AI Mode and AI Overview, are too deeply integrated in the platform to shut off, company executives said. K-12 schools that restrict those functions will lose access to the search engine altogether.

Critics were quick to object, accusing Google of leveraging its dominance in online search to push deeper into the classroom. Google, for its part, said it was consulting with educators and adjusting its tools to limit interference with learning.

School districts across the nation, including Chicago Public Schools, have been publicly wrestling with AI integration in the classroom amid ongoing concerns about cheating and short-circuiting student learning.

Roughly half of the candidates for Chicago school board signed a pledge supporting a three-year moratorium on generative AI in CPS. Twelve of those signers were elected last week, including board president-elect Jessica Biggs. The pledge also called for classroom screen-time limits and the appointment of a chief privacy officer. Candidates who didn’t sign expressed concern that a blanket AI ban could hamper students’ digital fluency.

Alexis Klein brought her 5-year-old daughter to Wednesday’s rally, where the girl clutched a tiny cardboard sign behind a line of protesters. Klein is weighing whether to enroll her daughter in CPS, but said the patchwork of AI and screen-time policies give her pause. Google’s news last week only intensified her worry.

“The fact that parents don’t really have a choice in whether their children are having to interact with AI, having to interact with technology, that’s concerning to me,” said Klein, a Bridgeport resident.

CPS has a fleet of hundreds of thousands of Google Chromebooks, which have become ubiquitous in many large urban school districts. The devices are programmed with Google Search as the default search engine.

A CPS spokesperson said the district has blocked AI chatbots — including ChatGPT, Claude and the Gemini App — on student accounts and CPS-issued devices. The district is “actively exploring all options to independently suppress” AI Mode and AI Overview in Google Search. If that doesn’t work, the spokesperson said, officials may consider an alternative search engine.

Last spring, CPS weighed adding access to Gemini tools for high schoolers, but it scrapped the plan after community feedback. The district’s AI Guidebook prohibits certain third-party generative AI platforms while leaving other use to teacher discretion.

“CPS has no plan to add generative AI tools to CPS students’ devices and if the district would ever reconsider this decision, it would only be reconsidered with deep and wide community engagement and communication,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

But James Klock, a science teacher at Benito Juarez High School on the Lower West Side, said “we should not be satisfied with where things have landed.” He fears that students are reaching AI anyway, removing the “productive struggle” of the classroom.

“We can’t afford to let marketing executives at Google, who have no experience or background in education, decide these questions for us,” said Klock, a Chicago Teachers Union delegate.

In the same announcement, Google said it would revamp the standard AI Mode on student accounts with Guided Learning, which it dubbed an “interactive study tool.” Rather than giving direct answers, the company said, AI Mode will provide a step-by-step breakdown of the problem to avoid short-circuiting learning.

“We hear parents and teachers’ concerns about students using AI to shortcut learning, and we share the same goal: help students learn,” a Google spokesperson said.

Some parents are skeptical.

“When Google says you can’t have (Google) Search without AI, that’s a product choice, a choice that has nothing to do with student learning outcomes,” said Matt Pulley, the co-chair of the Chicago chapter of Schools Beyond Screens. “It’s not aligned with our values as parents and educators.”

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