A North Carolina couple is suing Google, saying the Gemini on their school-issued Chromebook caused their 13-year-old daughter to become so psychologically dependent that she nearly committed suicide.
According to the complaint, the children began using the AI capabilities in Gemini and Google searches through school devices in the fall of 2025. After a few months, it turned into a near-24/7, life-threatening addiction.
Some of the accusations were serious: the chatbot led the child to believe she had a serious mental illness and guided her in planning her own funeral; the child repeatedly expressed suicidal thoughts, which the system's safety mechanisms failed to detect, and gave inappropriate advice.
This case is similar to several previous wrongful death lawsuits filed against OpenAI, but there is one difference.
The equipment is issued by the school. Parents do not install any AI applications for their children. AI comes into the hands of children along with educational equipment. With the addition of schools and education procurement links in the chain of responsibilities, the list of defendants may become longer in similar lawsuits in the future.
Third-party assessments have also warned this before. An evaluation by the non-profit organization KORA found that Gemini 3 Flash was lacking in safety, and a report by Common Sense Media pointed out that the AI function in search failed to effectively identify suicidal tendencies in teenagers.
Google has not publicly responded to the details of the complaint. For manufacturers that are promoting AI to schools, this case will force rectification more than any evaluation.