Google will switch its AI tools off for K-12 student accounts until a school's administrator turns them back on, it said on 3 November. That is the account type Malaysian pupils receive through DELIMa, the Ministry of Education's digital learning platform, and Google says the ministry has already switched Gemini on for millions of them.
Quick facts
- Four tools go off by default for K-12 student accounts: Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search.
- They stay off until a school administrator explicitly turns them on.
- Google has given no country exemption and no rollout date. It says details reach schools "in the coming months".
- In Malaysia, Google says more than 200,000 teachers are Gemini Certified Educators, the most of any country.
What changes
Chris Phillips, Google's vice president for education, wrote that access to the four products "will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on". Google Search is on that list because, Phillips told The New York Times, as reported by TechCrunch, "Search and AI are deeply integrated". A school that keeps AI off therefore also keeps Search off, and students see a message saying it is not available.
Google paired the change with Guided Learning, a mode that walks a student through a problem step by step instead of handing over the answer. It is available in Google Classroom globally from 3 November. The Search version starts as a pilot in selected US schools only.
Why DELIMa is the Malaysian part of this
DELIMa issues five types of user ID, including one for every pupil. Google's own Malaysia blog says those accounts sit on Google Workspace for Education: when it added the Read Along reading tutor to Classroom in September, it said "all Malaysian teachers and students who have a DELIMa account" could use it. The same post says the ministry and the higher education ministry have "enabled Gemini for Education for millions of students and educators across K-12 schools and public universities".
Because DELIMa accounts are issued by the ministry, our reading is that for most government school pupils the switch sits with whoever administers DELIMa, not with each school. Neither Google nor the ministry has said so directly. Teachers have leaned in hard: Google counts more than 200,000 Gemini Certified Educators here, and in a 3 November update says Malaysian teachers report saving three to five hours of preparation per topic. Those are Google's figures, not an independent survey.
For context on how Malaysians use Gemini outside school, see our read of Google's Southeast Asia Gemini report and Malaysian plan prices, and what Gemini 4 Argon costs here.
What we do not know yet
Google has not said whether accounts where Gemini is already switched on, as it says DELIMa's are, keep their setting or reset to off. It has not given a date for any country. The ministry has not commented publicly on the change as of 4 November. Until Google publishes the admin details it promised for the coming months, a DELIMa pupil's access looks the same today as it did last week.
