By Stuart Kerr, Technology Correspondent
Published: 08/08/2025
Last Updated: 08/08/2025
Contact: liveaiwire@gmail.com | Twitter: @LiveAIWire
Author Bio: About Stuart Kerr
As the 2025 school year kicks off, a new class of educational technology is quietly taking its seat at the front of the room. Google’s AI Mode, part of its revamped search experience, now enables students to interact with homework, diagrams, textbook scans, and full PDF documents using multimodal input—and it’s already transforming how classrooms function.
Announced in July, AI Mode’s education-centric tools include features like Canvas, where students can upload handwritten notes, photos of math problems, or passages from a science workbook and get step-by-step help in return (Google). These updates shift search from being keyword-based to becoming an interactive learning assistant, able to interpret images, analyse text context, and respond conversationally.
According to Campus Technology, students can now upload class PDFs, worksheets, or problem sets directly into the search bar. The system processes them in real time, offering clarity on equations, identifying key themes, or even rewriting confusing sentences. It’s a major leap in accessibility, particularly for students with different learning styles or language needs.
For educators, this opens a new frontier in differentiated instruction. AI Mode can reduce the cognitive load of complex tasks, provide alternate explanations, and support revision far beyond the classroom walls. As covered in AI and Climate Change: Can Machines Help Save the Planet?, AI’s role in processing vast, complex datasets is already well understood. What AI Mode does is apply that same intelligence to the micro-scale of day-to-day student queries.
The Verge describes AI Mode’s classroom update as "search that can see," capable of handling homework visuals like graphs, geometric sketches, or chemistry formulae. By combining vision models with language models, it breaks down multimodal input into a digestible response. It’s also seamlessly integrated with Google Workspace, meaning students working in Docs or Slides can use AI Mode without changing platforms.
Behind the scenes, the technology powering these capabilities aligns with the themes explored in Invisible Infrastructure: AI’s Hidden Role in the Modern World. What feels like a simple student Q&A is underpinned by high-performance AI systems parsing OCR data, language structure, visual context, and user intent—in milliseconds.
But these benefits come with new responsibilities. As explored in AI Guardrails: Mitigating Bias in Algorithms, the use of AI in education raises questions about accuracy, dependency, and equity. Schools will need clear policies to guide AI usage and ensure it supports rather than replaces core learning.
In parallel, researchers at arXiv have proposed the MuDoC framework (Multimodal Document-grounded Conversational AI), which outlines how AI systems can engage more responsibly with educational documents. It prioritises trust, clarity, and instructional alignment—principles likely to shape future AI Mode iterations.
Ultimately, AI Mode isn’t just helping with homework—it’s reshaping the mental model of what a study session looks like. Multimodal search is no longer a novelty but a foundation for personalised, on-demand learning. Whether through text, images, or full documents, students now have a digital companion who can adapt to their thinking process—and potentially elevate it.
About the Author
Stuart Kerr is the Technology Correspondent for LiveAIWire. He writes about artificial intelligence, ethics, and how technology is reshaping everyday life. Read more