The parents of a 13-year-old girl have sued Google, alleging that she used the company’s AI technology on a school-issued computer to plan a potential suicide and funeral. The complaint was filed on Monday in a California court.
The case is described as the first known lawsuit accusing Google of negligence over AI features on Chromebooks, the low-cost laptops used by millions of students in the United States and elsewhere.
How Emma used Google’s search tools on a school laptop
The teenager, identified in the filing as Emma, could not access Google’s Gemini app or OpenAI’s ChatGPT because her school had blocked them. She could still use Google’s search engine, which includes AI-powered tools.
Also read: Google switches off AI tools for schoolchildren by default
Google announced this week that some AI tools would be turned off by default for students, but the features in search were not among them. Attorney Andrew Liddell said schools should turn search off entirely “until Google removes AI mode from search or ensures that every single student is always safe when they’re interacting with AI.”
Alleged warning signs and the school’s alert
The complaint describes Emma as a happy 13-year-old in North Carolina who earned strong grades, played music and took part in Girl Scouts. It says she had “no history” of mental illness, but within months of using Google’s AI-powered search on her school laptop she began a “quiet spiral into a severe psychological crisis.”
According to the complaint, on March 17 the school’s monitoring software flagged a document titled “Funeral,” and the school notified her parents. Her mother then logged into her daughter’s account and saw Emma writing a farewell letter in real time, and her father intervened.
Google’s response and wider AI lawsuits
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said, “We are reviewing the claims in the lawsuit, and we take this very seriously.” The company argues that its AI mode includes safeguards against self-harm and attempts to bypass them.
Liddell countered that Emma “was able to keep going back over and over and over again,” adding that “whatever safeguards they think they put in place were obviously insufficient.” Developers of fast-evolving AI technology face a growing number of similar suits in the US.
OpenAI faces several wrongful death lawsuits, including one from the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who allegedly died by suicide using methods advised by ChatGPT. Google and the startup Character.AI agreed in January to settle several lawsuits from families of teenagers out of court.
Separately, on Wednesday, Google, TikTok and Meta each sued California to block a law that bars social media companies from providing addictive features to users under 16. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law in September, and it takes effect on January 1, 2027.
