Guided Learning: Google’s AI Tool that Teaches, Not Answers

The education sector faces a delicate balancing act: harnessing AI’s potential to enhance learning while preventing it from simply doing students’ work for them. 

As schools and universities grapple with rewriting policies on AI use – some embracing the technology, others banning it outright, and most hovering somewhere in between – tech companies see an opportunity to shape how the next generation learns.

Google is now entering the fray with a programme offering students across Europe, the Middle East and Africa free access to its paid AI services for 12 months.

The offer includes Gemini 2.5 Pro, the company’s large language model (LLM) that handles both text and images. 

Students aged 18 and over can sign up for the Google AI Pro Plan, getting access to tools that would normally require a subscription costing several hundred dollars.

“Since the earliest days of Search and YouTube, learning has been core to Google’s mission: helping people access the information that addresses their insatiable curiosity,” Debbie Weinstein, President of Google EMEA, says.

How Guided Learning balances helping students without doing it for them

The package throws in several AI tools alongside a hefty 2 terabytes of cloud storage. 

Deep Research churns through hundreds of websites to generate reports, while NotebookLM organises notes and information. 

Students also get Veo 3, which turns text prompts into eight-second video clips and Nano Banana, an image editing system that transforms photos using neural networks.

Then there’s Guided Learning that is built into Gemini, which Debbie describes as “a learning companion guiding you with questions and step-by-step support.” 

Instead of spitting out answers, the system asks questions to guide users through maths problems, essay planning and exam prep. 

Whether students will actually use it this way, rather than just hunting for the quickest route to a completed assignment, remains to be seen.

The system lets students “work through things like complex math problems, structure arguments, get started on an essay, prep for a test, get homework help, test their understanding with interactive quizzes and more,” Debbie says.

The timing matters, because Google is playing catch-up with OpenAI, whose ChatGPT became the go-to AI tool for millions of students practically overnight. 

Microsoft has poured billions into OpenAI and offers Copilot to schools, while Anthropic’s Claude has gained traction in education. 

This means that Google needs to lock in younger users now, before they graduate with a preference for a rival’s technology.

Debbie frames the approach around building understanding rather than shortcuts: “It’s not about just getting an answer, but deepening understanding and building critical thinking skills along the way,” she says.

How Google is also making AI accessible to teachers

Google has also made Gemini in Classroom free for institutions already using Google Workspace for Education, its suite of cloud-based tools that competes with Microsoft 365. 

Teachers receive access to “more than 30 new capabilities to help teachers plan more efficiently and create engaging content and resources,” according to Debbie.

The company is “partnering with universities around the world to help educators and students use tools like Gemini and NotebookLM to enhance efficiency, get more personalized support and foster AI literacy,” she says, though Google has been light on specifics about which institutions are involved or how many students have signed up.

The education market represents a prize worth fighting for, but nobody quite knows what the rules are yet. 

Universities are rewriting policies on AI use while simultaneously trying to work out how to detect AI-generated essays. 

Google is betting that AI literacy becomes as fundamental as knowing how to use a spreadsheet or write an email. 

Employers in technology, finance and consulting are already asking graduates about their experience with these tools.

“By giving students access to our most powerful tools, we’re equipping them with AI skills to boost creativity, spark curiosity and enhance problem-solving skills,” Debbie says.

“We can’t wait to see what the next generation of creators, artists and thinkers will do.”