Report: Google's AI Tools in Schools Linked to Declining Student Performance

Google's widespread integration of artificial intelligence tools in schools has led to concerns that students are becoming excessively dependent on the technology, potentially contributing to a decline in academic performance, according to a report.

Interviews with educators, school officials, parents, students, and clinicians, as detailed by The Wall Street Journal, indicate that features like Google's AI-assisted search are being used by students to solve problems, answer questions, and write essays. This reliance, the report suggests, is detrimental to their learning processes.

One eighth-grader from Pennsylvania, Richard Scott, shared that his reliance on AI for coursework led to difficulties when he was unable to use the tools, such as during tests. "It slowed my thinking down," he told the Journal. "When I was in a test and I couldn’t use AI, it was hard to think."

Despite internal warnings from Google researchers about the potential mental and emotional risks AI poses to children, the company has continued to promote its AI software, which is often preloaded on Chromebooks provided to schools. The Journal's report is based on interviews with current and former Google employees and a review of over a dozen Google research papers concerning AI's impact on students.

Mikel Rodriguez, a former Google research scientist, expressed concern that the widespread use of AI in education constitutes an uncontrolled experiment on a generation's cognitive development. "We’re doing this experiment on an entire generation on cognitive development, with no control group," Rodriguez stated.

The broader trend of increasing AI accessibility on personal devices is cited by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as a contributing factor to a global decline in reading scores. A recent survey of 760,000 15-year-olds across 91 countries found that student test scores have reached their lowest average in 25 years. In the United States, test scores dropped 14 points compared to 2022.

Students who reported daily use of AI tools for schoolwork scored 20 points lower on science tests than those who never used AI, according to the report.

A Google spokesperson asserted that the company's internal studies demonstrate the utility of AI tools as supplements to traditional teaching methods. "Teachers around the world use our technology every day because it solves real classroom challenges and helps improve learning outcomes," the spokesperson said.

However, an art-history teacher in Miami noted a significant increase in student failures on AP exams following the district's implementation of Google’s Gemini AI chatbot for high school students. "I had kids come to class after saying, ‘Miss, I had no clue what half the material was, I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve been using AI all year,’" the teacher, Kaitlyn Ruano, recounted.

While the report notes that tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT are also popular among students, Google's established presence in the education sector, through active relationship-building and providing educational software to over 170 million students and teachers globally, has given it a significant foothold. The company also maintains a network of thousands of certified teacher