As AI rapidly enters classrooms around the world, Google is discovering that the most important lessons on how to scale this technology are emerging not from Silicon Valley, but from schools in India. The country has become a critical testing ground for Google’s education AI, especially amid growing competition from rivals like OpenAI and Microsoft.
With over a billion internet users, India now represents the highest global usage of Gemini for learning, according to Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager for education. This adoption is happening within an education system defined by state-level curricula, significant government involvement, and uneven access to devices and connectivity.
The sheer scale of India’s education system explains why it is such a consequential proving ground. The school system serves approximately 247 million students across nearly 1.47 million schools, supported by 10.1 million teachers. Its higher education system is also among the world’s largest, with over 43 million students enrolled recently. This vast, decentralized, and unevenly resourced landscape complicates efforts to introduce AI tools widely.
One clear lesson for Google is that AI in education cannot be launched as a single, centrally defined product. In India, where curriculum decisions are made at the state level and ministries are deeply involved, Google has had to design its education AI so that schools and administrators control how and where it is used. This represents a shift from the company’s traditional approach of building products for global scale.
Beyond governance, this diversity is reshaping Google’s approach to AI-driven learning. The company is seeing faster adoption of multimodal learning in India, which combines video, audio, and images with text. This reflects the need to reach students across different languages, learning styles, and levels of access, particularly in classrooms that are not centered on text-heavy instruction.
A related shift is Google’s focus on designing AI tools for teachers, rather than students, as the primary point of control. The company has concentrated on tools that assist educators with planning, assessment, and classroom management, aiming to support rather than replace the teacher-student relationship.
In many parts of India, AI is being introduced in classrooms that have never had one device per student or reliable internet. Google encounters schools where devices are shared, connectivity is inconsistent, or learning jumps directly from pen and paper to AI tools.
Google is now applying its early lessons from India into specific deployments. These include an AI-powered JEE Main exam preparation feature through Gemini, a nationwide teacher training program for tens of thousands of educators, and partnerships with government institutions on vocational and higher education initiatives.
For Google, India’s experience previews challenges likely to emerge globally as AI integrates deeper into public education. Issues of control, access, and localization, now prominent in India, are expected to shape how educational AI scales worldwide.
Google’s push also mirrors a broader shift in how people use generative AI. While entertainment was a dominant use case recently, learning has now emerged as one of the most common applications, particularly among younger users. This makes education a more immediate and consequential arena for the company.
India’s complex system is drawing rival attention as well. OpenAI is building a local leadership team focused on education and has launched specific learning programs. Microsoft has expanded partnerships with Indian institutions, government bodies, and edtech companies to support AI-based learning and teacher training, turning education into a key competitive battleground.
However, India’s own Economic Survey highlights risks from uncritical AI use, including over-reliance on automated tools and potential impacts on critical thinking skills. This serves as a reminder that the race to enter classrooms is unfolding amid legitimate concerns about how AI shapes learning itself.
Whether Google’s India strategy becomes a global model remains to be seen. But as generative AI moves deeper into public education systems worldwide, the pressures now visible in India are likely to surface elsewhere, making the lessons learned there crucial for the entire industry.