Staff Writer: Gavin Lane-Poston
What happens when a college hands students two different AI models and expects them to notice the difference? ABAC is testing that out this fall, adding Google’s Gemini alongside Microsoft Copilot as part of its push to build digital literacy on campus.
Through a University System of Georgia–sponsored enablement agreement, ABAC is now offering Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, which includes Google Gemini, NotebookLM, Classroom, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and limited Drive storage. Google tools have technically been available at ABAC since 2019, but access was previously limited to agricultural education majors and included no AI features. The new rollout opens these tools to the entire campus community.
Not every Google service made the cut. Gmail and Google Forms will remain unavailable, and Microsoft 365 stays ABAC’s official email and collaboration platform — Google’s suite is meant to complement, not replace, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. ABAC says the limits exist to keep the college compliant with its security, retention, and data protection requirements.
The biggest draw for students may be having two AI models to work with instead of one. Copilot and Gemini don’t run on the same training data or design, so they don’t always produce the same answers — which gives students a low-stakes way to compare outputs and start thinking critically about how different AI systems reason. That kind of AI literacy is quickly becoming as fundamental as knowing how to use a search engine.
NotebookLM stands out as the most distinctive addition. Unlike a general chatbot, it only draws from documents a student uploads — PDFs, journal articles, lecture notes — and builds study guides, flashcards, and even short audio podcasts based strictly on those sources. For students juggling classes, jobs, and extracurriculars, it functions less like a search tool and more like a personalized tutor that never strays from the material.
ABAC is careful to frame all of this as a supplement, not a substitute, for actual learning. Individual instructors set their own AI policies course by course, and students are expected to follow them. The college’s messaging is consistent: AI can help with organization, comprehension, and review, but it can’t do the thinking that college is supposed to teach.
That framing fits into ABAC’s longer-term approach to technology on campus: give students access to modern tools inside a secure, monitored environment, rather than restrict access and hope students don’t find workarounds elsewhere. Google Classroom, Docs, Slides, and Sheets are also part of the rollout, giving students exposure to platforms already common in K–12 schools and small businesses across Georgia.
For a college whose mission centers on preparing graduates for life after ABAC, adding a second AI model and a source-grounded research tool is a small piece of a larger goal: making sure students leave campus knowing how to use these tools responsibly, not just how to avoid them.