Almost two weeks after his cellphone was seized by federal agents, Schools Chancellor David Banks was greeted with a standing ovation from a crowd of superintendents, principals, education department staff and Mayor Eric Adams at his annual "State of Our Schools" speech.

Adams did not speak at the event, and Banks did not directly address the seizure of his phone. Instead, he offered his vision for the city's school system — including an embrace of generative artificial intelligence, or AI.

What You Need To Know

  • Schools Chancellor David Banks delivered his annual "State of Our Schools" speech Tuesday, approximately two weeks after the FBI seized his cellphones

  • Banks got a warm reception from the audience, which included educators and the mayor — who did not speak

  • Banks laid out a vision for public schools that including embracing artificial intelligence to help assess student performance and personalize lesson plans

"When Chat GPT first emerged on the scene we were wary, wanting to protect our students and ensure a high academic bar. While those instincts were important, we quickly realized that we needed to prepare our students to be on the cutting-edge of this technology,” Banks said.

Banks said in addition to teaching students about AI, he believes it can be used to make schools more efficient, by providing more accurate measures of performance than a single standardized test.

"AI can analyze in real-time all the work that our children are producing in school — from homework to classwork to unit tests, to give teachers a daily accurate and comprehensive picture of a child's progress,” Banks said.

Banks said AI could also give students up-to-the-minute advice on colleges and careers, and could help teachers manage classrooms where students may learn at different paces by creating personalized lesson plans for students.

"AI cannot replace the power of a great teacher, counselor or principal. Can't happen. But what AI can do is it can help to elevate their work,” he said.

But there have been numerous examples of AI getting even basic questions wrong — like counting the number of Rs in the word strawberry, or determining which number with a decimal point is larger.

"Like most emerging technology, it's not fully baked yet, but it is getting more developed every single day,” Banks told NY1 after the speech. “So I wouldn't be overly concerned about some of the early missteps in AI and somehow writing that off as if we don't need to be concerned about it."

Banks also announced plans for a new accelerated high school in Southeast Queens: HBCU Early College Prep High School, where students will be able to earn an associate's degree and will learn about the history and culture of historically Black colleges and universities.