New York City pauses generative AI for pupils up to grade 8
The one-year moratorium covers nearly 600,000 public school pupils. High school students get AI lessons and a few supervised pilots. Career programmes such as computer science can get an exception.
New York City said on 2 September 2026 that pupils up to grade 8 will not use generative AI in public schools for one year.
The mayor's office said the moratorium runs from 2-K, the city's youngest year group, to grade 8, the last year before high school. It affects nearly 600,000 pupils, about two-thirds of enrolment.
It covers all software with student-facing generative AI. Companion chatbots are banned in every grade. The city called it the most expansive policy of its kind in the United States.
High school students will have two 45-minute AI lessons a year. Up to 50,000 of them will join five pilots under direct supervision from a trained teacher. amNewYork reported that the pilots leave out general chatbots such as ChatGPT. It also reported that the education department will turn off AI in nearly 40 programmes it had allowed. A product will be removed if its AI cannot be turned off.
The city said exceptions apply to assistive technology for pupils with disabilities and for multilingual learners. They also apply to pupils on career readiness programmes such as computer science. Teachers can still use AI for planning and operational tasks. CBS New York reported that they cannot use it to grade work. It quoted the United Federation of Teachers, a union, as saying the policy "leaves many questions unanswered".
The rules apply only to New York City's public schools. The city also recommended screen limits of 30 minutes a day in grades 3 to 5 and 45 minutes in grades 6 to 8. In November, Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticised Google over its plan to withhold Search from schools that ban AI.
A new Technology in Schools Coalition will assess the moratorium during the school year and publish recommendations. The announcement does not give a date for that report. It also does not say what will happen after the 2026 to 2027 school year.
Sources
- Office of the Mayor, New York City Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels Put Students First with Nation's Broadest Generative AI Moratorium in Schools
- amNewYork AI gets a timeout: Mamdani puts one-year moratorium on generative AI for younger NYC students
- CBS New York NYC officials ban AI in the classroom until high school
- CBS News Google will block search access for schools that ban AI use