New York City’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan sets out how the city government intends to govern and use AI across its agencies. Published by the Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI) on 16 October 2023, the plan is one of the city’s first citywide frameworks for AI in public administration. It was prepared with input from 50 city employees across 18 agencies, alongside contributions from industry, academia and civil society.
The plan’s main goal is not to deploy AI broadly, but to create the rules, skills and support structures needed for responsible use. It focuses on seven initiatives: building a governance framework, strengthening external relationships, engaging the public, improving AI knowledge inside government, supporting implementation, enabling responsible procurement, and keeping the plan updated over time. In practice, this means giving agencies more centralised policy guidance, helping them assess risks, and making sure AI projects are aligned with accountability requirements.
The methodology is deliberately cross-agency. OTI used a citywide approach to identify immediate and medium-term actions, and later progress reporting shows that the plan translated into 37 actions. The Year 2 progress report says many actions were completed, including work on sharing information across agencies, identifying priority skills needs, assessing internal and external resources, and setting up support for implementation and acquisition.
A notable feature of the project is its focus on governance before scale. Rather than treating AI as a single technology rollout, New York City framed it as an administrative capacity issue: how to ensure agencies can evaluate tools, manage risks, and keep pace with a fast-changing field.