TL;DR
Norway is banning generative AI for ages 6-13 in schools from late August. Teens 14-16 need teacher supervision. The country already banned smartphones in 2024.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said AI lets children skip crucial steps in learning to read, write, and do maths, extending the country's pattern of pulling technology out of classrooms
Norway is banning generative AI for ages 6-13 in schools from late August. Teens 14-16 need teacher supervision. The country already banned smartphones in 2024.
Norway will ban the use of generative AI tools by elementary school children starting from the new school year in late August, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre announced on Friday. The ban applies to students in first through seventh grade, covering ages six to 13, according to Reuters.
Støre said at a press conference that AI increases the risk of children skipping important steps in their education. “The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics,” he said.
The restrictions extend beyond elementary school but in a reduced form. Students aged 14 to 16 will be allowed to use generative AI only under a teacher’s direct supervision. Those 17 and older are encouraged to use AI tools appropriately on their own.
Norway has form in removing technology from classrooms. The government banned smartphones from schools in 2024, a move that has produced measurable results. A study by researcher Sara Abrahamsson examining more than 400 Norwegian middle schools found that the ban led to reduced bullying, improved grades, and a roughly 60% drop in visits to psychology specialists, with the effects particularly pronounced among girls.
The AI ban follows the same logic as the smartphone restrictions: that young students need protection from technology that can interfere with foundational learning. However, the smartphone ban was introduced in the context of declining national test scores, and it is not yet clear whether generative AI use in Norwegian schools has reached levels that would produce similar measurable harm.
Norway is also preparing to restrict children’s access to social media. The government announced in April that it would introduce legislation to ban social media for children under 16, with the bill expected to go to parliament by the end of 2026. That proposal mirrors Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, which came into force in December 2025.
The pattern is not unique to Norway. The UK is pursuing its own under-16 social media ban, and several EU member states are considering similar measures. The broader question facing governments is whether restricting access to technology is more effective than regulating the products themselves, a tension that runs through the growing wave of lawsuits against AI companies over child safety.
In the US, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously advanced the GUARD Act in late April, a bill that would ban AI companions for minors and require age verification. The bill’s scope narrowed during markup to focus on “AI companions,” defined as chatbots that simulate sustained interpersonal relationships, rather than all AI-powered chatbots. That narrower definition could potentially exempt general-purpose tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, though critics have argued companies could exploit the distinction.
Norway’s approach is blunter but also clearer. Rather than trying to define which AI tools are harmful and which are not, it is drawing an age line and placing enforcement responsibility on schools. The country’s track record with its smartphone ban suggests the approach can work, at least within the controlled environment of a classroom.
Whether it will be enough is a different question. Generative AI is accessible on any device with an internet connection, and a school-hours ban does nothing to limit what children do at home. Norway’s planned social media legislation, which would require platforms to implement age verification, addresses part of that gap.
But no country has yet solved the problem of enforcing age restrictions on AI tools outside of institutional settings. Norway is betting that the classroom is the right place to start.
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