Google just threw a curveball at the $1 billion SAT prep industry. The company announced it's now offering free, AI-powered practice exams through Gemini, complete with personalized feedback and detailed explanations for wrong answers. The move positions Google as a disruptor in standardized test preparation while raising fresh questions about AI's expanding role in education and the future of human tutors.
Google is making a serious play for the education market, and the traditional SAT tutoring industry just felt the ground shift beneath it. The company announced it's now offering free SAT practice exams through Gemini, its AI assistant, in a move that could democratize test prep access while simultaneously threatening thousands of tutoring jobs.
The mechanics are straightforward. Students simply prompt Gemini with "I want to take a practice SAT test," and the AI serves up a full exam. After completion, Gemini analyzes the results, pinpointing strengths and flagging weak spots that need work. It doesn't stop there - the AI provides detailed breakdowns of why answers were wrong, essentially functioning as a round-the-clock tutor that never charges by the hour.
Google didn't go it alone. The company partnered with The Princeton Review, a heavyweight in test prep, to ensure the practice questions mirror actual SAT content. That partnership matters - it's the difference between generic practice and exam-realistic preparation that could actually move scores.
The timing is strategic. SAT prep has long been a dividing line between students who can afford $100-per-hour private tutors and those who can't. By offering this for free, Google is positioning itself as the great equalizer in college admissions prep. But the announcement is already sparking debate about whether we're solving one problem while creating another.
Teachers and education researchers aren't entirely sold on the AI-everywhere approach. The concern isn't that Gemini can't help students prepare - it's that students might lean so heavily on AI tools that they never develop their own problem-solving muscles. is backing up these worries, with suggesting that over-reliance on AI assistance can actually weaken critical thinking abilities over time.
