# NYC Public Schools Ban AI Use Through Middle School > Source: > Published: 2026-09-02 19:00:00+00:00 New York City Public Schools is banning generative AI for students from pre-K through eighth grade for the 2026-27 school year, affecting more than half a million students in the nation's largest school district. ABC News reports: In a statement to ABC News, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that the city is implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in pre-school or 2-K through eighth grade and will spend the next year "studying the impacts of this technology." Mamdani wrote in part, "the tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary." "We do not see it that way," he added. [...] The district said it is implementing the most expansive AI moratorium in the nation, eliminating software that uses student-facing AI and banning companion chatbots. The city's AI moratorium does not apply to high school students. The district said it will offer twice-yearly AI literacy classes designed to help high school students "think critically" about the technology before they start to "rely" on it.[Read more of this story](https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/09/02/167206/nyc-public-schools-ban-ai-use-through-middle-school?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed) at Slashdot.