Google announced a statewide partnership with Missouri on September 8, 2026, that will give nearly 100,000 educators and more than 1.1 million students across K-12 and higher education no-cost access to the company’s AI tools, training curriculum, and industry credentials. The agreement covers the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, and extends free career training to all state residents through local Missouri Job Centers.
Drew Sidel, North America lead for Google Workspace and AI for Education, described the arrangement in the company’s announcement as a statewide partnership with Missouri’s classrooms and workforce. Governor Mike Kehoe, in a statement published with the announcement, framed the agreement around workforce preparation and responsible use. “This partnership reflects Missouri’s commitment to using AI in ways that directly benefit the people we serve,” Kehoe said, adding that the state is prioritizing safe, ethical, and transparent use of technology while preparing residents for high-growth, high-wage jobs in an AI-driven economy.
What Schools and Colleges Receive
Participating Missouri public schools and higher education institutions gain access to three program tracks. The first centers on Gemini for Education and Gemini Notebook, which Google describes as tools that help educators generate differentiated lesson materials, summarize coursework, and give students step-by-step instructional support. According to the Gemini for Education product page, the service is built on Gemini 2.5 Pro and is available at no cost to qualifying institutions through Google for Education Fundamentals, including schools that use a different primary productivity suite. The page lists functions spanning lesson planning, assessment creation, exam preparation, writing feedback, and administrative work, and states that students under 18 receive a distinct product experience with additional guardrails and AI literacy resources.
The second track is the Google AI Educator Series, free foundational training intended to help teachers and administrators build practical AI literacy at their own pace. The program’s official page states that the series was co-developed with ISTE+ASCD and delivers non-sequential sessions of roughly 15 minutes for K-12 educators and 45 minutes for higher education faculty, with micro-credential badges on completion. Sessions are organized into three categories — foundational understanding, pedagogical applications, and administrative applications — and align to ISTE+ASCD standards for educators and faculty. New content is released on the first Wednesday of each month, beginning September 2, 2026.
The third track pairs the Google AI Professional Certificate with Google Career Certificates, hands-on credentials that Google says educators can integrate into high school and college coursework in fields including AI, cybersecurity, data analytics, and IT support. The Google Career Certificates page lists additional foundational programs in project management, digital marketing and e-commerce, and UX design, and states that learners typically complete a certificate in three to six months with under 10 hours of study per week. Google reports on that page that more than 70 percent of certificate graduates report a positive career outcome, such as a new job, promotion, or raise, within six months of completion, citing a 2025 survey of U.S. program graduates, and that completers gain access to an employer consortium of more than 150 companies.
Privacy Terms and Local Control
Google’s announcement states that conversations and data within Gemini for Education are private, protected by enterprise-grade security, and not used to train the company’s AI models. The product page adds that data is not human-reviewed, that the service operates as a core service under Google Workspace for Education terms, and that it supports compliance with regulations including COPPA and FERPA. Institutions retain administrative control over their data, including the ability to turn Gemini access on or off for users and to review usage through the admin console.
Adoption is voluntary. Although the partnership is statewide, each Missouri school district, college, and university will determine if, when, and how to integrate the tools and training, according to the announcement.
Training Beyond the Classroom
The agreement extends past enrolled students and educators. Google is opening access to Google Career Certificates and Google AI courses at no cost to all Missouri residents through local Missouri Job Centers, the state’s public workforce development offices.
Google’s announcement cites research indicating AI can save educators an average of 10 hours a week, pointing to its work with teachers in Northern Ireland, and presents the Missouri arrangement as a model for how states can approach AI adoption. Missouri residents and institutions can find access information through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education at dese.mo.gov and the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development at dhewd.mo.gov.
