New York City bans AI use for younger students, recommends screen time limits: What Mamdani said

New York City has announced that it will ban students from using artificial intelligence (AI) in schools until eighth grade while high school students will have limited access to it. The police will be for a year as of now and is aimed at protecting children’s education and mental health, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on Wednesday (Sep 2). He also announced that students will receive AI literacy classes twice a year. It will be implemented in nearly 600,000 public schools across NYC.

While making the announcement, Mamdani said children should learn through teachers and human interaction. He flagged the ill effect of AI learning on younger students and opined that studnets should not be dependent on AI tools at an early age. "The tech industry wants us to believe that AI-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way. Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow," Mamdani said. “They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own," he added.

In his plan of action, Mamdani said that a task force made up of students, teachers, parents, elected officials and industry experts will study the impact of the policy during the 2026-27 school year. Its findings will help shape future rules. The new rules will also ban companion chatbots designed to provide emotional support across all grades. However, teachers will still be allowed to use AI for lesson planning and administrative work. The city also recommended screen time limits for students, suggesting a daily cap of 30 minutes for students in grades three through five and 45 minutes for those in grades six through eight. Teachers will be allowed to use AI for instructional planning and operational tasks.

Last month, the Los Angeles school district became first major schooling district to temporarily block access to generative AI tools on student devices across all grades. The ban will remain in place across the country’s second-largest school district as officials develop a student AI policy during the school year.

Reactions on AI policy

Reacting to the move, New York Governor Kathy Hochul backed the move, saying “rapidly-changing technology supports our children and their learning, rather than getting in the way of it." The policy follows an earlier framework issued in March that allowed students to use AI for research, exploration and creative projects. The approach faced criticism from parents and teachers who said the rules were too relaxed. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York, praised the screen time limits but said the city’s AI policy “leaves many questions unanswered,” including how the Education Department “will be more aggressive in demanding the products it purchases have AI safeguards.”