Given their recent stock hit due to Search and Ads taking a hit from the AI mode stuff, I'm a bit surprised they're doubling down more on making their core business inaccessible unless people opt into AI. Particularly since these are for children, where their ad data is probably (?) not as monetizeable, it doesn't make sense.

The only reasoning I can think of is that this is an intentional play to get students indoctrinated into Google's AI ecosystem, which is scummy but I guess also the entire reason the Chromebook education stuff exists