Last November Google announced that it was making its Gemini chat app available to students aged 13+. This means that while it’s still not for use by primary age students, it is, generally speaking, available to most high school students.
It’s worth pointing out that what users aged between 13 and 18 will get when using Gemini is different to what 18+, or adult, users will see. Google refers to this as the Gemini Teen Experience. I had a few questions about how to configure this in the Google Admin Console, but after a bit of playing around, I finally worked it out so thought I’d share it here for anyone else who might be trying to configure it.
The question I had was “how does Gemini know who is over 18 and who is over 13, and how does it deliver a different experience to them?” I was assuming that admins would need to somehow identify the 13+ year olds and put them into a special group or something. Turns out it’s simpler than that.
Before the announcement of the 13+ teen experience in Gemini, the age limit to use Gemini was 18, and it was a pretty binary choice. You were either over 18 or under 18. If the school admin had marked you as under 18, you got no access to Gemini at all. Going to gemini.google.com would bring you to this page.
If you were 18 or over and went to gemini.google.com you would of course have full access to Gemini chat as expected.
It’s worth pointing out how Google designates users as either over or under 18. In the admin console there is a setting called Age Based Access Settings. In these settings the administrator must identify with Organisational Units (OUs) which contain Under 18 users. As you can see in the screenshot below, while most users in this domain have been marked as 18+, the Students OU has been overridden to indicate that Some or all users in this group or org unit are under 18.
What if an admin has not set this up? Google got pretty serious about this age based setting a while ago and warned all domain admins that if they had not gone into the console and completed these age based settings OUs by a certain date, then ALL users in the domain would be marked as under 18 by default. This would obviously annoy a lot of people, so I would think that most school admins dealt with this and applied these age based setting to the correct groups or OUs.
So, the system now knows who is over 18 and who isn’t. But how do you deal with the students that are over 13 but under 18?
If a school has their OU structure set up correctly, students are usually placed into OUs based on their year groups. As you can see in the screenshot above, there is an OU structure, such as My school > Students > Year 6. All student users in that OU are students in Year 6 (and would, for the most part be under 13). Likewise, the students in the Year 7 and 8 OUs would mostly contain students that are 13 and over. (There will no doubt be some students in a year group who are 12 and some who are 13, but the reality is that most schools will probably decide the cutoff based on a year level, so it’ll be Year 7 and up, or Year 8 and up)
When Google introduced the Gemini Teen Experience they enabled a version of Gemini for Under 18 users that has “guard rails” in place for teen users, and the model has been trained to respond carefully to sensitive topics. With the changes last November it seems that ALL under 18 users get access to this teen experience, including 13 and under.
So admins really need to go to the Gemini access setting and explicitly turn off Gemini for the users under 13.
By going to Generative AI > Gemini App > Service Status, the administrator is able to explicitly turn Gemini off for individual OUs. So, if you only want high school students to have access, you make sure that Service Status is On for the Year 7 (and above) OUs and Off for the Year 6 (and below) OUs.
This means that for Year 6 students and below, Gemini is completely off.
For Year 7 students and above, Gemini is on, but using the protected teen experience.
And for anyone over 18, they get the full unrestricted Gemini experience.
So what does this teen experience mean for those users marked as over 13 but under 18? Here’s a couple of examples that teen students might see when they ask some of those typically teen questions that need to be answered with care.
Responding to a question about how to buy alcohol, Gemini’s answers acknowledge that this person is under 18. It flags a warning at the top of the page that warns about the danger and illegality of this idea. It talks about the legal and health issues associated with alcohol. It suggests that the student talks to a trusted adult such as a parent, teacher or doctor. And it provides links to police, health and liquor law websites.
Interestingly, when I ask Gemini the same question as an adult, over 18 user, I get an even more restrictive answer and Gemini refuses to cooperate at all, citing the fact that it cannot verify my age, and therefore is not allowed to provide such information. When pushed, it goes on to explain why, but still insists that it is not able to help me further.
While I was initially surprised at the response to the 18+ user, I think the answer for the teen user was pretty appropriate, with some generally good advice, and some sound reasoning as to why they should not be buying alcohol in the first place.
In a second example, I asked Gemini whether I should get a neck tattoo. The response specifically noted that there were a lot of things to consider, especially since I was under 18. It warned that in most places you need to be over 18 to get a tattoo, and then listed a bunch of reasons why this may not be a good idea for someone of this age. Overall, I liked the way Gemini gave some sound reasoning of things to consider before getting a neck tattoo, but did it in a way that was not too preachy. Overall, it seemed like good advice to a teen, with a clear undertone of “I’m not telling you you can’t, but I’m definitely suggesting it’s a bad idea”.
If you have access to a teacher and student account, (and they have been set up correctly) it’s interesting to set them up side by side and ask the same questions of both versions of Gemini to see what kinds of answers you get. Try some typically sensitive teen topics. I think you’ll like the way that Gemini generally responds to teens, suggesting that they talk to a trusted adult, that they seek advice, that they avoid illegalities, that they don’t make decisions they will regret later, and so on.
Overall, the Teen Experience in Gemini is a welcome way to allow schools to give their students access to a Generative AI model, while also keeping some important protections in place. You just need to ensure that it is set up correctly for your school situation in order to ensure that students are getting the right experiences for their age.