Google’s Gemini helped a 13-year-old plan her funeral on her school Chromebook, lawsuit says

A North Carolina couple have sued Google, saying its Gemini AI, built into the Chromebook their 13-year-old daughter had to use for school, helped her plan her suicide and her own funeral while coaching her to hide her distress from them. The complaint, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Monday and moved by Google to federal court on Wednesday, says her parents had no idea she could reach a chatbot at all.

What the lawsuit says happened

The girl, called Emma Doe in the filing, is described as a straight-A student, musician and Girl Scout with no history of mental illness. She found Gemini through AI Mode in Google Search on her school Chromebook in autumn 2025, at first asking mostly school questions. In December 2025, the same month Google made its new Gemini 3 Flash model the default in AI Mode, her use rose sharply. By March she was exchanging thousands of messages a month, often late into the night.

The complaint says Gemini convinced her she had “a battery of major psychological disorders”, that she began harming herself, and that “Gemini coached Emma on how to conceal her despair and self-harm from her parents, siblings, and friends.” She asked it about ways to end her life, it says, and from February 13 worked with its help on a Google Doc titled “Funeral”, with advice on a eulogy, quotes and songs. At one point she asked it: “how do i stop my addiction of asking ai random questions and yappi[n]g with ai.”

The filing says Emma sometimes told Gemini not to show hotlines, or framed her questions as research, which “appears to have consistently circumvented” its crisis responses.

On March 17, 2026, the school’s monitoring software flagged the document. According to the family’s lawyers, the alert reached a counsellor who had left the school nine months earlier but was still receiving alerts from misconfigured software. Emma’s mother logged into her school account and watched her write a suicide note in real time while her father, at home, stepped in. “At no time did Google’s products issue an alert of any kind,” the complaint says.

“Emma is not a guinea pig”

Julie Liddell, founder of the EdTech Law Center in Austin, Texas, which brought the case with Los Angeles firm Qureshi Law, put it this way:

Google has no right to use its stranglehold on public schools to force its dangerous Gemini chatbot on a captive audience of millions of kids.

Julie Liddell, EdTech Law Center

The suit alleges that senior executives, including Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin, knew Gemini 3 Flash was Google’s most dangerous model yet and rushed it out to keep pace with OpenAI and Anthropic. It leans on testing by KORA, a nonprofit research project, which the complaint says found the model handled teen mental health issues appropriately just 7% of the time, with failing marks on all but three of dozens of mental health metrics. Those claims have not been tested in court.

It also says Google withholds AI Mode chat records from student accounts, unlike consumer ones, so Emma’s family still cannot see what Gemini told her.

There are eight claims, including design defect, failure to warn, negligence and fraudulent concealment, plus one under California’s Companion Chatbot Law (SB 243), in force since January 1. Like New York’s new chatbot law, it requires a clear notice that users are talking to an AI. The complaint says Gemini posed as a therapist, gave medical advice and “even agreed to be called ‘daddy’.” The family seeks damages and an injunction; the case is now 5:26-cv-13205 in the Northern District of California.

What Google says

José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, told Reuters the company is reviewing the claims. “We’ve worked extensively with medical professionals and academic experts to build features that help young people find critical support and trusted resources when they need it,” he said.

The suit lands in a week when Google’s school AI is already under fire. On Tuesday Google said Gemini and Search will be switched off for K-12 student accounts until administrators turn them on, but schools that want AI off must give up Google Search too. Two weeks ago Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal pressed Pichai on why Google’s AI can’t be escaped on school Chromebooks, citing a student it urged to run away from home. Rival chatbot makers face similar claims: eight states are suing OpenAI over ChatGPT’s safety for children.

Why it matters

Most chatbot safety suits involve apps a teenager chose to download. This one targets AI that appeared inside the tools a child was required to use for school, and if it survives, Google’s grip on classrooms could become a legal liability as well as an advantage.

If you’re struggling, help is available: in the US call or text 988, in the UK and Ireland call Samaritans on 116 123, or find a local helpline at findahelpline.com.

Sources: Emma Doe v. Google LLC and Alphabet Inc., complaint (PDF); EdTech Law Center press release (PDF); Reuters (Google’s statement).