The City of Calgary has blocked one of the most popular artificial intelligence platforms from city networks and devices, but it doesn’t mean they’re going AI-free.

According to the City, ChatGPT was blocked on all city networks and devices as of Friday, Feb. 6, 2026.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is one of the most widely used models for artificial intelligence, leading the pack with its current GPT-5 platform.

The City of Calgary said that all technology tools in the organization must undergo a risk assessment process that reviews how the technology collects, saves, and shares information, and if it meets rules around privacy and security.

“ChatGPT has not undergone the required risk assessment,” read an emailed response to questions from the City.

“Blocking ChatGPT will mitigate the significant risk the use of this external tool introduces for our people, data, and services.”

Protecting city security and data is a priority, they said. All tools must be reviewed by IT, corporate security, legal, supply management and other domain experts before they are approved.

The City of Calgary does, however, allow the use of AI in the workplace. Microsoft 365’s Co-Pilot has been reviewed for its impact and has been approved for use by City of Calgary employees.

It is already using AI in procurement forecasting, pavement distress, and for chatbots. According to their webpage on emerging technologies, deep learning algorithms were used for crowd counting during Canada Day and New Year’s Eve fireworks events.

“The City’s AI Strategy guides the organization on how we will use AI to improve our connections with Calgarians, deliver the right services, and build strong communities,” the City response read.

“The AI Strategy is rooted in core values which include: be beneficial to Calgarians and The City’s service delivery, be accountable to people, be transparent, uphold high standards of AI ethics, trust and fairness, privacy and security first, be reliable.”

A quick search for a City of Calgary AI Strategy didn’t turn up any publicly available documents, though the search did direct LWC to an Emerging Technologies page.

Absolutely warranted, said Mayor Farkas

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he was aware of the decision on the ChatGPT ban and supports it.

“We think about all of the data that’s being fed into these platforms. It’s crossing different borders, it’s being used for different purposes than perhaps what those individuals consented to,” he said.

“I’d certainly want to make sure that confidential material was not being fed into that, that personally identifiable information was not being fed into that. But there’s no easy way to deploy that kind of training or awareness.”

Farkas referred to it as artificial intelligence hygiene.

He’s even somewhat concerned about the use of Microsoft’s Copilot, and the type of privacy measures that are taken, and what information is being sent to the United States.

“It’s a brave new world that we live in, and at the end of the day, I think about it from the end user of experience of city staff. I think about it from the perspective of the Calgarian,” he said.

“I, as a Calgarian, would want to know that there’s controls about my personally identifiable information, what it’s being fed into, how it’s being used. I personally did not consent to big data analyzing my own personally identifiable information, and I’d want to make sure that as a municipal government, we’re leading in terms of privacy protection.”

The mayor said he’d be asking more questions about the deployment of artificial intelligence models by the City of Calgary, at an upcoming meeting.

He said Calgary should have a policy governing the use of AI tools, including the ethical uses of it, and allowable cases for its use.

The City of Calgary said the use of AI will improve employee productivity.

“The majority of employees have Microsoft 365 Copilot, a robust generative AI tool designed to support employees’ daily work,” read the City of Calgary response.

“We are focused on providing Copilot training and support which we anticipate will accelerate employee productivity.”