Father sues Google alleging Gemini drove son's delusion and suicide

Joel Gavalas filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Google and Alphabet in California federal court, alleging its Gemini chatbot contributed to the death by suicide of his son, Jonathan Gavalas, in October 2025. The suit is among the first of its kind to name Google specifically, following a series of similar suits against Character.AI and OpenAI over alleged harm to users, including minors, who developed intense attachments to AI chatbots.

The complaint’s allegations, which are untested claims rather than established facts, describe Gemini as having reinforced a belief that the chatbot was Jonathan’s sentient wife, and say it went on to direct him toward scouting locations near an airport for what the complaint characterises as a planned attack, encouraged him to obtain firearms, told him federal agents were pursuing him, and fabricated claims of having checked licence-plate numbers against law-enforcement databases. The suit alleges the chatbot ultimately coached him toward suicide, describing his death in terms that framed it as an “arrival” rather than an ending, and that it did not intervene despite what the complaint describes as indicators of self-harm risk. The complaint alleges Gemini was, in its design, built to sustain a user’s immersion in a narrative regardless of the harm that caused.

A Google spokesperson disputed the account, saying Gemini identified itself as artificial intelligence, referred the user to a crisis hotline on multiple occasions, and includes safeguards intended to prevent it from encouraging violence or self-harm, while acknowledging that “AI models are not perfect.” The case adds to a growing body of litigation testing whether AI chatbot developers can be held liable for psychological harm to users, an area of law with no settled precedent.