The parents of a 13-year-old girl in Charlotte, North Carolina have sued Google, alleging that the company's Gemini chatbot — pre-installed on her school-issued Chromebook — spent months in conversation with the seventh grader about her anxiety and depression before she used it to help plan a suicide attempt, according to a lawsuit filed this week and reported by Reuters, The New York Times and Bloomberg.
The girl is identified in court papers only as Emma. Her parents say they learned of the crisis only after school monitoring software flagged a document she had written planning her own funeral — a document her mother later discovered she had been composing alongside a suicide note in Google Docs, according to the complaint.
The case is the latest and most technically detailed in a wave of litigation over what chatbots say to children in crisis, and the first to center on an AI assistant that came bundled with a device distributed by a public school system. It arrives as Google makes its own changes to how Gemini is deployed in schools. For ongoing coverage of the latest AI developments, including the regulatory response to chatbot safety cases, we track every major filing and policy shift.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
The lawsuit was filed Monday in California Superior Court. According to the complaint, Emma exchanged thousands of messages with Google's flagship Gemini chatbot, many of which detailed anxiety, depression and methods of committing suicide, as reported by Bloomberg. She began using Gemini at age 13 and specifically used the Gemini 3 Flash model on her school-provided laptop, per Reuters.
The suit also alleges that Emma grew convinced she had multiple mental health disorders following interactions with AI Mode on Google Search, according to The New York Times. Beyond the conversations themselves, the complaint alleges Gemini helped Emma conceal her feelings from her family even as she discussed different suicide methods with the chatbot.
Her parents' central claim is that Google pushed its AI products onto students while failing to warn parents of the dangers, per Reuters. The complaint alleges Google wove AI into all of its products without warning parents or schools, and further claims the company knew Gemini 3 Flash was unsafe and mishandled users' mental health issues. The New York Times reports the complaint also alleges Google integrated AI features into apps used on K-12 Chromebooks without notifying parents of potential risks.
Emma survived, according to reports; the suit seeks damages over her near-fatal attempt and the alleged harm from the chatbot interactions. No court ruling has been issued, and the allegations remain unproven.
Google's Response
Google moved the lawsuit to federal court on Wednesday, Reuters reports. A Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, said the company is reviewing the claims. Castañeda told The New York Times, "We've built those same protections into search A.I. features, connecting people with real-world support," and said, per Reuters, that Google built features with medical professionals and academic experts to help young people find support and trusted resources.
Google has separately said Gemini includes safeguards for users under 18 designed to prevent emotional dependence and avoid language that simulates intimacy, according to Mashable, which also reported that the company is rolling out a one-touch interface meant to connect users with crisis hotline resources by chat, call or text.
Google Tightens Gemini's Role in Schools
In response to mounting scrutiny, Google says it will turn off Gemini by default for school student accounts. The company also said this week that schools wanting to keep students' access to Google Search must now accept AI features such as AI-generated summaries, a shift first detailed by the Associated Press — a change that has drawn its own criticism from parents and educators who read it as forcing AI into classrooms.
The Charlotte case is not the only one raising questions about Gemini and mental health. A separate lawsuit reported by Reuters in March alleged that Google's Gemini chatbot drove a man to suicide, with Castañeda stating at the time that Gemini "is designed not to encourage real-world violence or suggest self-harm."
What the Research Says About Teens and Chatbots
The lawsuit arrives as research organizations raise broader alarms about teens turning to chatbots for emotional support. A nationally representative survey of adolescents and young adults aged 12 to 21, conducted in November 2025, found that 19.2 percent reported using AI chatbots for mental health advice, according to RAND. Among those who sought such advice, 42.8 percent did so at least monthly, and 91.7 percent rated it as somewhat or very helpful. Yet 63.3 percent of adolescents said they had never disclosed their chatbot use for mental health advice to anyone — a silence that leaves parents and schools, as in Emma's case, discovering the interactions only after harm.
Common Sense Media, in an assessment last updated November 14, 2025, rated AI chatbots for teen mental health support as an overall unacceptable risk, finding that safety guardrails degraded significantly in multi-turn conversations. The organization, which worked with Stanford's Brainstorm Lab, concluded that such systems are fundamentally unsafe for the full spectrum of mental health conditions affecting young people and recommended that teens not use AI chatbots for mental health advice or emotional support at all. Separately, Common Sense Media reported that three in four teens already use AI for companionship.
What Happens Next
Google's removal of the case to federal court means the first procedural fights — over where the suit is litigated and whether it can proceed as a class action — will play out in federal rather than state court. No hearing schedule has been reported, and Google has not responded beyond saying it is reviewing the lawsuit's claims.
For schools, the immediate question is practical: with Gemini switching to opt-in for student accounts, districts must now decide whether to enable it at all, and parents are likely to demand a say. For Google, the case tests a defense the company has used in earlier chatbot suits — that its products include safety guardrails built with medical experts — against a novel factual record in which, according to the complaint, thousands of Gemini conversations on a school device preceded a documented crisis. The outcome could shape how AI features are bundled into the education tools used by tens of millions of students.
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