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Patchnotes

Google ties school Search to AI

Issue 82 min read

Google's new school settings bundle Search with AI, and people are using Opus 5.5 to rebuild well-known apps from scratch.

In this issue

Schools can’t get Google Search without AI

Google’s upcoming K-12 settings give school administrators a new switch. Search, Gemini and other AI tools will be off by default. Administrators have to turn them on.

The catch is in what the switch covers. There is no option for the old Google Search without AI. Google says Search and AI are now too tied together to separate.

So a school that wants no AI loses Google Search too. Administrators can turn on Search without the separate Gemini app. They cannot turn on Search without the AI built into it.

The pushback and Google’s reply

The settings arrive while schools and officials are already pushing back on AI in classrooms:

  • New York City and Los Angeles have already restricted student AI use.
  • Two US senators have pressed Google over its classroom push.
  • Former FTC chair Lina Khan accused Google of using its search dominance to pressure schools into accepting AI.

Google says the new settings give schools more choice. On paper they do, since AI now starts switched off. In practice the choice is all or nothing for Search.

Leaving is hard. Many schools already run on Chromebooks, Docs and Classroom, so they have little room to walk away from Google.

People are rebuilding big apps with Opus 5.5

People are using Claude Opus 5.5 to rebuild large, well-known software from scratch and then open-source the result. Apps that took big teams years to build are being copied in days.

Three examples from this week:

If you want to try the method yourself, there is a full course on how to reverse engineer anything with Opus 5.5.

If a copy takes days, the years a big team spent building an app protect it less than they used to.

Worth reading

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