1001 Smart Cities
🇺🇸 New York City

The MyCity Chatbot: proven wrong in public, switched off two years later

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified · ◆ 7 sourced claims, none individually verified yet

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

New York launched a MyCity chatbot in the autumn of 2023 to tell business owners what city rules required of them. On 29 March 2024 The Markup and THE CITY published their own tests: the bot suggested landlords could discriminate against tenants with Section 8 vouchers, told users it was fine to refuse cash despite a city law of 2020 to the contrary, and did not know the minimum wage. It stayed online for almost two more years. Mayor Mamdani called it functionally unusable and put the cost to the administration at around half a million dollars; the city took it down in early February 2026, leaving a page saying its beta test had ended.

Completed 📅 2023–2026 🤖 Uses AI
Outcome🪦 Failed
Evidence📊 Independentgrades the sourcing — this entry states no impact figure
what does this mean?The strongest source is an independent non-academic evaluation: an audit office, a government or EU review, or an NGO. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byCity of New York — MyCity
Scale🏙️ City-wide
CostReported at nearly $600,000 to build; Mayor Mamdani put the running cost to the administration at around half a million dollars.
🏛️ GovernanceDigital governmentArtificial intelligence

Sources

↗ The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the lawPublished 30 January 2026Carries the newsroom's own 2024 test results, the mayor's wording, the cost figures, and an update dated 4 February 2026 recording that the city had taken the bot down. The Markup tested the live system itself rather than relaying an operator's claim — the basis for the independent evidence grade.
↗ THE CITY — Mamdani Targets 'Unusable' AI Chatbot for TerminationPublished 30 January 2026Co-publisher of the original investigation; places the shutdown decision in the budget process.
↗ StateScoop — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbotTrade coverage; carries no figure the two publishers above do not. Undated on the page as retrieved.
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 7 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 7 addressable claims, 3 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 7

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-380d5e87610324f3 quantitative
New York launched a MyCity chatbot in the autumn of 2023 to tell business owners what city rules required of them
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Markup records that the chatbot was released by the Adams administration in the fall of 2023 and was meant to give business owners an accessible way to check city rules and regulations.
Caveat
The launch is given as 'fall 2023' in the article's prose; no month or day is stated, and no verbatim locator for the date was captured on retrieval.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law
Claim 2 clm-ce4d3abf2057b94b quantitative
On 29 March 2024 The Markup and THE CITY published their own tests
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Markup dates the original joint investigation with THE CITY to 29 March 2024.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law
  2. THE CITY — Mamdani Targets 'Unusable' AI Chatbot for Termination
Claim 3 clm-2f143bf2d06952ff quantitative
the bot suggested landlords could discriminate against tenants with Section 8 vouchers
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Markup reports that the bot suggested landlords could discriminate against tenants with Section 8 vouchers.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law
Claim 4 clm-b0ee83d40398fd4e quantitative
told users it was fine to refuse cash despite a city law of 2020 to the contrary
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Markup reports that the bot told users it was fine to refuse to accept cash despite a city law to the contrary, enacted in 2020.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law
Claim 6 clm-742d3c70e6f2d918 quantitative
Mayor Mamdani called it functionally unusable and put the cost to the administration at around half a million dollars
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Markup quotes the mayor: the previous administration had an AI chatbot that was functionally unusable, and it was costing the administration around half a million dollars.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law
  2. THE CITY — Mamdani Targets 'Unusable' AI Chatbot for Termination
Claim 7 clm-1cbf4ff413a2aa92 quantitative
the city took it down in early February 2026, leaving a page saying its beta test had ended
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
An update to The Markup's article dated 4 February 2026 records that the city has taken down the chatbot, and that the bot's page stated its beta test had ended.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-20-baseline effective 2026-08-20 · created 2026-08-20

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:9f34ebca9275a3bc5252ee22f5b7095e74bc6d32414260e725ca860e5b450952
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
7
of 7 claims mapped
3
source dossiers
2
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
City of New York — MyCity
Actor types
city-government
Funding model
Not recorded
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Reported at nearly $600,000 to build; Mayor Mamdani put the running cost to the administration at around half a million dollars.
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

3 source dossiers

The Markup — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law themarkup.org · 7 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-00a633f8dc1c717f
Publisher
Name not classified · themarkup.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-01-30
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Carries the newsroom's own 2024 test results, the mayor's wording, the cost figures, and an update dated 4 February 2026 recording that the city had taken the bot down. The Markup tested the live system itself rather than relaying an operator's claim — the basis for the independent evidence grade.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
THE CITY — Mamdani Targets 'Unusable' AI Chatbot for Termination thecity.nyc · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-2d8c2761cfd030f9
Publisher
Name not classified · thecity.nyc
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-01-30
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Co-publisher of the original investigation; places the shutdown decision in the budget process.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
StateScoop — Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot statescoop.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-212bfcf560544b13
Publisher
Name not classified · statescoop.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Trade coverage; carries no figure the two publishers above do not. Undated on the page as retrieved.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇺🇸 Local Law 144: Bias Audits for Hiring Algorithms · New York City The same city requires bias audits of other people's hiring algorithms while its own chatbot was advising businesses to break the law. 🇦🇷 Boti — WhatsApp City Assistant · Buenos Aires Boti answers residents on WhatsApp and is still running; New York's bot answered businesses on the web and was withdrawn. 🇺🇸 NYC311 Service Requests & Open Data · New York City 311 routes a request to someone who answers for it. The chatbot answered instead of routing, and got the rules wrong.

Explore the wider context

💸 The Price Nobody Publishes🪪 Digital government guide🏙️ New York City city profile🏛️ Governance projects📖 Adaptive traffic signals📖 Civic participation platform📖 Digital identity
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “The MyCity Chatbot: proven wrong in public, switched off two years later” — New York City, United States. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/nyc-mycity-chatbot/ (last verified 2026-08-20). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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