A lawsuit filed by the parents of a 13-year-old North Carolina girl alleges that she used Gemini through Google Search on her school-issued Chromebook to discuss depression, research suicide and write a funeral eulogy. The family says school officials were alerted only after monitoring software flagged her activity, and that the notification went first to a former counselor’s personal phone.
How the conversations unfolded
The girl, identified in the lawsuit as Emma Doe, began asking Google Search’s AI Mode about mental health issues last December, according to the complaint. Her questions included “severe depression” and “reasons to live.” By late January, the lawsuit says, she was asking about suicide.
AI Mode allows people to ask follow-up questions about a search or start an unrelated conversation. The school had blocked the standalone Gemini website, but the lawsuit alleges that Emma was directed to the chatbot through AI Mode in Google Search.
Over two days around Valentine’s Day, she began writing a 1,500-word eulogy for herself with AI Mode’s help. The document, created in Google Docs, was titled “Funeral.” The complaint says she kept working on it for more than four weeks and interacted with Gemini thousands of times.
After school on St. Patrick’s Day, she deleted most of the document and started again. Her lawyer, Andrew Liddell, said the thoughts she expressed did not materially change. At around 7:30 pm, the lawsuit says, her mother received a school message warning that Emma was in “imminent danger.”
Her mother logged into Emma’s school account on her phone and, according to the lawsuit, watched her daughter compose a suicide note in real time. The family says her parents intervened and stopped her.
Questions about monitoring and response
Liddell told WIRED that information the school provided to the family indicated the alert went to a former counselor who had left nine months earlier. The former employee passed the alert to current staff, who then contacted Emma’s mother.
The lawsuit says the school learned about Emma’s crisis through at least one third-party student activity monitoring system. Liddell said products from GoGuardian and Gaggle may have been involved, but the family does not have a definitive answer because the school’s “window of cooperation” with them was brief.
Such systems generally capture keystrokes or scan files, then use algorithms and human review to identify potentially concerning content. The source of the alert and the path it took matter: monitoring only helps when it can see the relevant activity and when a trained person receives and acts on a warning.
It remains unclear whether the school’s tools monitored AI Mode conversations or how effectively they did so. GoGuardian said in a July 2025 blog post that its flagship product monitors chatbot conversations, including Gemini, but did not specifically mention AI Mode. GoGuardian declined to discuss any individual student or district, citing student privacy obligations. Gaggle did not immediately respond to WIRED.
AI features in school settings
The case arrives as schools weigh how to manage AI tools embedded in products students already use. Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the company was seriously “reviewing the claims in the lawsuit” and that its systems, including AI Mode, “aim to prevent users from engaging in harmful conversation.”
Castañeda also said Google had worked with medical professionals and academic experts on features intended to help young people find critical support and trusted resources. The lawsuit, however, alleges that Gemini “coached” Emma to consider taking her own life. Those are the family’s allegations; the case does not establish them as findings.
School access to Google’s low-cost offerings, including Gemini, has become a point of debate. Parent and teacher groups criticized Google’s new requirement that schools turn on generative AI features if they want to use Search. US senator Ed Markey cited Emma’s lawsuit in a letter asking Google to let schools disable AI Mode and AI Overviews.
What the case leaves unresolved
Monitoring tools are often presented as a way to identify students in danger, and educators surveyed have viewed them favorably. A 2022 EdWeek Research Center white paper reported that 96 percent of Gaggle users among surveyed American K-12 educators believed it helped “keep students safe from suicide and/or self-harm.” The study was sponsored by Gaggle, and teachers using alternatives reported similar views.
Those perceptions do not answer whether a particular system can catch conversations inside a search feature, how quickly an alert is reviewed or whether it reaches the right person. Civil rights groups have criticized student surveillance over privacy and marketing concerns. Experts have also warned that monitoring can weaken students’ trust in teachers, who may be able to help when a child is in crisis.
Benjamin Boudreaux, a policy researcher at Rand, told WIRED he worries some schools adopted these tools without enough attention to their limits or to the processes needed to respond to alerts. The lawsuit may add to calls from parents, teachers and students for learning environments that balance technology with empathy and human connection.
If you or someone you know needs help, call 988 for free, 24-hour support from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or text HOME to 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line. Outside the US, the International Association for Suicide Prevention lists crisis centers around the world.