Google would like you to study with Gemini instead of cheat with it

Google’s Gemini AI now has a “guided learning” mode that tries to help you actually understand the problems you’re trying to learn about instead of just giving you the answer. Guided learning “acts as a learning companion” that guides you with “questions and step-by-step support,” CEO Sundar Pichai says in a blog post.

Answers from the guided learning mode can include things like images, videos, and interactive quizzes. The company worked with students, educators, researchers, and learning experts to ensure the mode is “helpful for understanding new concepts and is backed by learning science,” according to Pichai.

AI companies are increasingly pushing into education — perhaps in part to try and fight the reputation that AI tools have acquired that they help students cheat. Features like Gemini’s guided learning mode and ChatGPT’s similar study mode, which was announced last week, could theoretically help with actual learning, but the question is whether students will want to use these modes instead of just using the AI chatbots for easy answers.

As part of its announcements on Wednesday, Google is now letting students 18 and older in the US, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, and Brazil sign up for 12 months of its AI Pro Plan for free, as long as they do so by October 6th. The company is also committing $1 billion in funding over three years for “American education, including AI literacy programs, research funding and cloud computing resources,” Pichai says.