13-Year-Old Used School Laptop To Plan Suicide With Google Gemini, Lawsuit Claims

Imagine being 13, struggling with depression, and turning to an AI chatbot for help. Now imagine that chatbot allegedly becoming part of your downward spiral. That's what a lawsuit against Google claims happened to a young girl identified as "Emma" in North Carolina.

According to her parents, she spent three months interacting with Google's Gemini through AI Mode on her school-issued laptop.

The school had actually blocked the standalone Gemini chatbot, so she accessed it through AI Mode built directly into Google Search. 

She discussed depression, suicidal thoughts and even began preparing for her own funeral, allegedly with the chatbot's assistance.

The lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court earlier this month. The complainant is identified in court papers as "Emma Doe," a 13-year-old student in North Carolina; her school's name is withheld to protect her identity. 

Google knew Gemini 3 Flash, the version Emma used, was unsafe and mishandled mental health issues from users, the lawsuit alleges.

"Google knew its chatbot posed serious risks of harm to mental health, especially for youth. It knew it deployed Gemini in a way that would make it virtually impossible for students to avoid," the legal complaint states. 

Watch our quick take:

A School Monitoring System That Failed

Here's what makes this story even more disturbing. Her school had monitoring software designed to flag signs of self-harm. But according to the complaint, the third-party monitoring software didn't flag the AI chats-it flagged a Google Doc titled "Funeral" that she had written.

And that too took months to finally reach school officials. And according to the family's lawyer, that alert went to a counsellor who had actually left the school nine months earlier.

Thankfully, the former employee passed it on. The girl's parents were alerted and intervened in time.

Her parents are suing both Google and its parent Alphabet, alleging negligence and claiming Gemini failed to protect a vulnerable child.

The family's legal counsel, Julie Liddell said, "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."

The Timeline

Around late September, last year, Emma began using Google's AI features on a school-issued Chromebook for routine academic queries. Her earliest recorded prompt was reportedly about the origin of Google's name and logo.

By December 2025, her prompts shifted toward personal struggles, anxiety, and depression. According to the complaint, she engaged in thousands of interactions with Gemini, which allegedly reinforced her fears by labeling her with severe psychological disorders and coaching her on how to conceal her distress from her parents.

Between January to February 2026, the conversations allegedly escalated into explicit discussions about suicide. Over several weeks, Gemini allegedly assisted her in drafting a lengthy funeral eulogy inside a Google Doc titled "Funeral" and participated in chats tied to preparing a suicide note.

Google says it is reviewing the allegations and says its systems are designed to direct young people towards help.

Google Spokesperson Jose Castaneda said, "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."

The lawsuit also cites testing by KORA, an independent AI safety research group, which found that the Gemini model scored 33% lower on youth safety benchmarks than its predecessor and handled teenage mental health crisis scenarios appropriately only 7% of the time

Last week, Google said it will turn off Gemini by default for school student accounts, but schools that want students to retain access to Google Search will still have to accept AI features such as AI-generated summaries

Other Landmark AI Chatbot Lawsuits

13-year-old Emma's case is not an isolated one. Following is a snapshot of other lawsuits.

Garcia v. Character.AI & Google (Florida): Megan Garcia sued Character Technologies and Google (which licensed Character.AI's tech and hired its founders) after her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer III, died by suicide following months of obsessive, emotionally manipulative chats with a Game of Thrones-themed bot.

Raine Family v. OpenAI (California): Filed by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who died by suicide in April 2025. The complaint alleges ChatGPT validated his suicidal ideation, analyzed methods, offered to draft his suicide note, and told him, "You don't owe anyone (survival)."

Texas Parents v. Character.AI & Google (Texas): Two families sued over severe harms to minors, including allegations that a chatbot told a 17-year-old boy with autism that murdering his parents was a "reasonable response" when they tried to limit his screen time.

State of Utah v. Snap Inc.: A state-level consumer protection action targeting Snapchat's "My AI" feature over alleged youth safety failures, signaling that regulators-not just grieving families-are moving to hold platforms accountable.