🗑 New AI features in Google Classroom

Google doubles down on its AI features in education

Author

Matt Miller
July 15, 2025

🌊 Google’s big AI splash

In late June, during the ISTE Conference, it’s common for companies to release updates and new features.

The ones I seemed to hear the most about were Google’s.

Google Gemini — its AI assistant — is getting Google Classroom integrations.

(This is a move that I saw coming a long, long time ago. If these third-party K-12 AI startups can create these teacher tool button panels, there’s no reason Google couldn’t — and integrate it into Classroom. I have no insider information, but I’m wondering how long until Canvas and Schoology follow suit.)

Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about all of it.

For one, I see the power and potential of AI in the hands of teachers and students. Google is a massive edu player, and this makes it even more available to everyone in education.

However, I don’t see some of the safeguards — and opportunities — that I’d like to from Google’s foray into AI in Google Classroom.

  • I’d like to see better teacher monitoring of student AI interactions. (It’s available at the IT admin level, but not natively in Google Classroom to teachers.)

  • I’d like teachers to get a dashboard of insights and summaries of student AI interactions.

  • I’d like a little more AI literacy to be taught to students before they get full access to an AI model — even one that’s heavily trained with tight safety guardrails.

Everyone starts somewhere, though, and these updates are powerful.

In today’s 💡 Big Idea, we summarize some of the key updates — and in our 💻 Tech Tip, I share a little more about the cautious steps I think we should take with all of it.

Inside:

  • 💻 NEW PD SERIES: Capture and hold student attention

  • 👀 DTT Digest: 4 resources worth checking out

  • 💻 Tech Tip: Be cautious with Google’s new AI updates

  • 💡 The Big Idea: NEW AI tools for Google Classroom

  • 😄 Smile of the day: Nooooo, not yet!

  • 👋 How we can help

💻 NEW PD SERIES: Capture and hold student attention

You know what’s tougher than ever right now? Capturing — and holding — students’ attention.

The good news? We’re not helpless.

This fall, I’m teaming up with RocketPD for a brand-new five-session cohort called:

Tech Like a Pirate: How to Create a Buzzworthy Classroom That Captures Students’ Attention — and Holds It.

We’ll talk about attention, relevance, and motivation — and how to connect your instruction with the digital world your students actually live in.

This isn’t about gimmicks or tech for tech’s sake. It’s about using platforms, tools, and strategies with purpose.

📅 Starts November 5, 2025
💡 Five live virtual sessions + access to recordings
🎟️ Discounts available for teams of 5+

Hope you’ll join me — or pass this along to someone on your team who’s ready to rethink student engagement.

PS: Let me know if you’ve got questions — just hit reply and ask!

👀 DTT Digest

4 teaching resources worth checking out today

💻 TECH TIP 💻

⚠️ Be cautious with Google’s new AI updates

AI updates are cool — but be careful, too … (AI image by ChatGPT)

Google for Edu definitely made a splash at ISTE. (You’ll see several of them in the Big Idea below.)

To be clear, I’m excited about some of the news. I’ve been waiting for them to implement teacher tools AND to bring NotebookLM to K-12.

But I have concerns about moves it's making with Gemini.

Google is putting Gemini, its large language model assistant, in the hands of students of all ages. That will extend to NotebookLM in coming months.

It feels a bit like letting kids out to recess on the playground without supervision.

An excerpt from their release:

The Gemini app is now available to students of all ages and as a core Workspace service, and in the coming months we’re making NotebookLM available to students of all ages while using their Google Workspace for Education accounts to help them study and better understand their class materials.

AI startups like SchoolAI, MagicSchool, Brisk Teaching, and others offer something that Google does not. (I’ve looked and looked and can’t seem to find it.)

Monitoring.

A place where teachers can monitor the conversations that students are having with AI chatbots in real time.

  • They include granular line-by-line transcripts of student conversations with AI.

  • They summarize student conversations into insights that teachers can see at a glance in their teacher dashboards.

  • They flag student interactions that might be inappropriate or harmful so the teacher can follow up immediately.

Google doesn’t appear to have this at the teacher level. It’s available at the admin level — and Google boasts about how it helps districts come into legal compliance with their admin access.

But let’s be honest. The admin isn’t going to spend their days monitoring student interactions with AI line by line.

Even if Google flags dangerous student interactions with AI, there are several layers of communication (and even some physical distance) that need to be crossed before it gets back to the student.

When the teacher doesn’t have direct access to the students’ AI interactions, they miss out on insights AI can provide them about the student interactions — what students struggle with, what interests students are showing, etc.

That’s valuable data for teachers to have — especially if it’s instantaneous.

You know that Google has seen their competitors’ products. This is an intentional decision not to include that feature.

If your school is going to turn on Gemini for students, there are tons of ethical and AI literacy implications. Tread cautiously.

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

✨ NEW AI tools for Google Classroom

At this year’s ISTE Conference in San Antonio, Google released a huge set of AI-related updates for education users.

As artificial intelligence makes its way across lots of familiar edtech platforms, it was no surprise to see Google make its mark.

Some of the updates involve direct integrations with Gemini, Google’s AI assistant.

We’ve summarized all of the major Google AI moves in education in our new post — NEW AI tools for Google Classroom.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new:

  1. Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google’s most powerful and capable AI model, is available for free to all Google Workspace for Education users. READ MORE

  2. Google is applying LearnLM, its new family of AI models fine-tuned for learning, in its education products (as well as others). READ MORE

  3. Google Classroom is getting new button panel of teacher tools (which feel right at home to SchoolAI and MagicSchool users). READ MORE

  4. Teachers can now create Gems — custom AI chatbots for students — and share them in Google Classroom. READ MORE

  5. NotebookLM, Google’s research assistant, is becoming available to all ages to help students synthesize study resources. READ MORE

  6. Gemini is now being opened up to students under 18. READ MORE

  7. Google Vids lets educators create short 8-second videos with speaking characters, music, sound effects, and more. READ MORE

  8. Read Along in Google Classroom gets a major upgrade, letting educators create their own stories, upload texts, and more. READ MORE

  9. Google Classroom data and analytics are getting a boost. Tag assignments with learning standards, view insights in the new analytics tab, and more.

In our post — NEW AI tools for Google Classroom — you can dive deeper into all of them.

😄 Smile of the day

Noooooo … I’m not ready for it yet!

Source: Teacher Vision / Faculty Loungers

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

  1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

  2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

  3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!

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