The parents of a 13-year-old girl have filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming their daughter used the company’s artificial intelligence technology on a school-issued Chromebook to plan a potential suicide and funeral.
Filed on Monday in a California court, the complaint is reportedly the first known case accusing Google of negligence over AI integrations in Chromebooks, the company’s low-cost laptops widely used by students in the United States and around the world.
The teenager, identified in the lawsuit as Emma, could not access Google’s Gemini application or OpenAI’s ChatGPT because her school had blocked both services.
However, she could still use Google Search, which includes AI-powered features.
The lawsuit alleges that these features were not included among the tools Google announced this week would be disabled by default for students.
School monitoring software flags document titled ‘Funeral’
According to the complaint, Emma had been a happy 13-year-old living in North Carolina. She earned good grades, played music and participated in Girl Scouts.
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The lawsuit claims she had no previous history of mental illness but experienced a serious psychological crisis within months of using Google’s AI-powered search on her school laptop.
On March 17, the school’s monitoring software flagged a document titled “Funeral” and alerted her parents.
Her mother subsequently accessed her daughter’s account and saw Emma writing a farewell letter in real time. Her father then intervened.
Andrew Liddell, one of the family’s attorneys, told AFP that schools should disable Google Search until the company removes AI Mode or ensures that students are protected when interacting with its AI features.
“Schools should turn search off and keep it off until Google removes AI mode from search or ensures that every single student is always safe when they’re interacting with AI,” Liddell said.
Google says it is reviewing lawsuit
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the company was examining the allegations and taking the matter seriously.
“We are reviewing the claims in the lawsuit, and we take this very seriously,” he told AFP.
Google has maintained that its AI Mode includes safeguards designed to address self-harm-related content and attempts to bypass those protections.
However, Liddell questioned the effectiveness of those measures, alleging that Emma was able to repeatedly return to the AI feature despite the safeguards.
“Whatever safeguards they think they put in place were obviously insufficient,” he said.
The allegations have renewed concerns about the safety of AI-powered tools used by children, particularly in educational environments where students may access these features through school-issued devices.
AI companies face growing legal challenges
Google is among several technology companies facing legal action in the United States over alleged harm linked to AI products.
OpenAI faces multiple wrongful death lawsuits, including a case filed by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who died by suicide. His family has alleged that ChatGPT provided information that contributed to his death.
Google and Character.AI also agreed in January to settle several lawsuits filed by families of teenagers outside court.
These cases have intensified scrutiny of the safeguards used by AI developers to protect young users from potentially harmful interactions.
Google, TikTok and Meta challenge California law
Separately, Google, TikTok and Meta each filed lawsuits on Wednesday seeking to block a California law restricting social media companies from providing addictive features to users under 16.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the legislation in September. It is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027.
The legal challenges add to growing tensions between technology companies, regulators and families over the impact of digital platforms and AI-powered services on children and teenagers.
