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Millions of students every day turn to AI chatbots<\/a> for help with schoolwork, emotional support and personal advice \u2014 often unaware of where their conversations and other personal information end up.<\/p>\n How that data is used \u2014 and schools’ role in protecting it \u2014 is a growing concern for educators, parents and kids as artificial intelligence becomes a ubiquitous part of the school day, embedded in many of the classroom tools students are required to use.<\/p>\n As the school year started, the country’s two largest school districts, New York City and Los Angeles, announced they were putting the brakes on student use of AI<\/a> for one year, as they study how to best incorporate the technology into education. <\/p>\n In response to a growing AI and screentime backlash, Microsoft<\/a> announced last week it had agreed to adopt guardrails and privacy standards for its AI in schools, as negotiated with the American Federation of Teachers, the country\u2019s second-largest teachers union. <\/p>\n The safety provisions in the agreement are meaningful, but the standards will only be effective if all AI companies, especially the tech giants, sign on, said Josh Golin, executive director of online safety nonprofit Fairplay. He said the agreement sidesteps the question of whether AI products<\/a> even belong in classrooms, or at what age they should be introduced.<\/p>\n \u201cI worry that a high-profile framework like this will be misunderstood and schools will think, \u2018If they\u2019re doing a good job on data privacy and safety, then that means we should be using the tool,\u2019\u201d Golin said.<\/p>\n The AFT said the agreement, which is legally binding and requires third-party audits for compliance, could set an industry standard. Two other leading AI companies, OpenAI<\/a> and Anthropic<\/a>, said they also were discussing safety and privacy pacts with the AFT. But Google<\/a>, the dominant provider of education technology for America’s schools, has not said whether it plans to offer similar protections.<\/p>\n As part of the wide-ranging agreement<\/a>, Microsoft says it will not use student or educator data to train AI systems, apart from a narrow exception for data that could help protect students. It says the data it collects cannot be sold, used for advertising or used for product development. <\/p>\n The agreement prohibits any use of AI companions or features \u201cdesigned to foster emotional attachment or dependency\u201d and to keep students engaged for longer than a learning task requires. It also includes a range of audit and transparency measures that require the company to disclose to families, in plain language, how its tools work.<\/p>\n \u201cThis standard sets a high bar for child privacy and AI safety, and we\u2019ll extend this agreement to every school district across the country,\u201d Brad Smith, Microsoft\u2019s vice chair and president, said in a statement. The standards will apply to all schools that Microsoft has contracts with starting Nov. 1, he said.<\/p>\n AFT President Randi Weingarten called the agreement the \u201cfirst of its kind\u201d and an important step to setting an industry standard in the absence of federal and state legislation on AI in schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want parents to have control of their kids\u2019 education. We want educators to have control of kids\u2019 education, not ed tech. And that\u2019s what this agreement is,\u201d Weingarten said.<\/p>\n She spoke at a joint news conference with Smith at the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers, the AFT\u2019s New York City affiliate. The headquarters is home to AFT\u2019s National Academy for AI Instruction for teachers, which launched a year ago<\/a> backed by $23 million from Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic.<\/p>\n Along with their yearlong AI moratorium, the school systems for New York City and Los Angeles plan extensive audits of their education technology contracts and AI tools, with a focus on data privacy, transparency and accountability. The ban in New York City applies to all elementary and middle school students, while in Los Angeles it extends through high school. <\/p>\n Weingarten said she contacted Google directly to tell them about the agreement before making it public, in hopes the company would become a signatory. <\/p>\n The company has not responded to a request for comment from The Associated Press on whether it plans to offer similar protections.<\/p>\n \u201cIs Google going to embrace this framework? That is a huge question,\u201d said Golin, the online safety nonprofit chief. He noted schools also use thousands of AI-driven educational technology products produced by smaller companies.<\/p>\n Google found itself at the center of controversy over AI in schools when it announced in August it had turned on its Gemini chatbot for many K-12 students using Google Classroom, its learning management system. The company says Google Classroom is used by 150 million teachers and students worldwide.<\/p>\n Critics decried Google’s move as an escalation of the race between tech giants to make inroads in schools and win over the next generation of AI users. The AI addition to Classroom only affects schools that allow student access to its Gemini app or Gemini Notebook, but it marks a major shift. Until August, Google had only allowed Gemini to be turned on for students 18 or older.<\/p>\n Weingarten said she is also in talks with OpenAI and Anthropic, which both issued public praise for the agreement.<\/p>\n OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, called it an \u201cimportant milestone for AI safety and privacy in schools.\u201d The company has been working with AFT, it said in a statement, \u201cand we look forward to finalizing our own agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Anthropic, the maker of Claude, said in a statement, \u201cWe applaud all efforts to drive responsible AI use in education.\u201d The company said it was working with AFT to shape \u201ca gold standard for safety and privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts in data privacy say the new standards could help shape the conversation that schools have with AI providers, whether a school is a Microsoft customer or not.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019m hopeful about is that this takes some of the pressure off individual school districts to negotiate with large tech companies,\u201d said Elizabeth Laird, director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Until now, the negotiating power of schools to secure privacy protections from tech firms often depended on financial clout. \u201cI think this standard makes progress toward not having that type of inequity across school districts.\u201d<\/p>\n Laird commended the agreement for going \u201cabove and beyond\u201d what is legally required for vendors working with schools. For instance, Microsoft has committed not to use sensitive data that many companies leverage, such as information about gender, race, age, ZIP code that can be used to identify a person even if their name is removed.<\/p>\n But until others sign on, Laird said, the agreement highlights how difficult it is to set AI standards in the absence of legislation. It also emphasizes that the burden of protecting student privacy should fall on tech companies \u2014 not on parents, students or schools. <\/p>\n Microsoft’s Smith noted that tech companies have been late to accept that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all know there are important discussions and debates all across the country, about when AI should be used in schools, how it should be used, for what purpose,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt is our role, even our responsibility, to ensure that AI is provided in a form that teachers and kids and parents can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n _____<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list<\/a> of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n