New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a wide-ranging WIRED interview to lay out concrete municipal AI policy, including limits on student AI use in schools and a pause on new data center development in the city. The interview, published November 3, 2026, comes as Americans head to the polls for the midterms and as mayors face growing pressure to regulate the technology where federal rules remain unsettled.
WIRED spoke with Mamdani at City Hall about his first 10 months in office, his use of social media as a governing tool, and where he stands on issues shaping the midterm elections. The AI measures stand out because they are actual city policy, not campaign rhetoric, at a moment when few local governments have moved from debate to enforcement.
What Mamdani says about AI in New York City schools
Mamdani told WIRED he wants limits on how students use AI in the classroom, framing the rules as a matter of protecting Kids rather than banning the technology outright. The mayor's stated position puts him in step with a growing group of education officials who say tools like chatbots can help learning but also risk cheating and dependency when deployed without guardrails.
The interview does not detail every classroom rule, but it does underline that the city is treating AI in schools as a policy question for city government, not something to leave entirely to individual schools or vendors. For parents and teachers, that means the debate over student AI use is now moving from advisory guidance to enforceable local standards.
- Student AI use in schools: Mamdani backs limits on how students use AI tools in class
- Data centers: the mayor supports a pause on new data center development in the city
