New York City’s massive public school system, the biggest in the US, is officially stepping into the AI era, but with strict guidelines.

City officials have published their new preliminary guidelines governing how artificial intelligence can be used in classrooms, marking the first formal attempt to regulate a technology that has already rapidly spread across schools.

Under the new rules, teachers and school leaders are allowed to use AI tools for tasks like lesson planning, brainstorming ideas, organizing materials, and communications. But the city is drawing clear red lines when it comes to anything that has direct ramifications for students.

According to the guidelines, AI cannot be used for grading, student discipline, behavioral monitoring, or counseling, due to concerns about fairness, bias, and over reliance on automated systems.

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said publicly that AI is meant to assist, not replace, educators. “There is no tool or resource that can replace what our teachers bring,” he said, adding that the goal is to use AI to “make the work of our educators more efficient” while maintaining academic integrity.

These policies come a few years too late, as use of AI has already spread across the city’s school system, where many individual schools had already begun experimenting with AI tools on their own. Some schools created their own informal policies while waiting for official guidance, which created a patchy set of rules across the huge cities.

The new framework attempts to standardize the regulations. The school system opened a 45-day public feedback period, which allows parents, teachers, and administrators to weigh in before the rules are fully implemented.

The New York Times reports that AI tools are already being used in classrooms across the city, often informally, as teachers experiment with ways to integrate the technology into daily instruction while navigating unclear boundaries.