What does Utah HB 218 actually require schools to teach about AI?

Utah HB 218 adds AI literacy to the list of concepts that belong in the existing required grade 7 or 8 digital skills course. Its entire AI provision is one clause: students should understand "artificial intelligence capabilities, limitations, ethical considerations, and societal implications." That is the whole statutory requirement. Everything else is still to be written.

The exact language

HB 218 was signed on 18 March 2026 and took effect on 6 May 2026, enacting Utah Code section 53E-4-208. The section defines "digital skills concepts" as covering sixteen topics. The third reads:

(iii) artificial intelligence literacy, including understanding artificial intelligence capabilities, limitations, ethical considerations, and societal implications;

That is the Act's only AI language. "Artificial intelligence" is not defined anywhere in the bill.

What HB 218 did not do

It did not create the grade 7-8 requirement. That already existed in State Board rule R277-700-5, which requires at least one course in digital literacy in grade 7 or 8. HB 218 amends what that course should contain.

It did not create a new AI course, and it did not add a graduation requirement. A Utah family reading headlines about "Utah requires AI education" should understand the actual shape: one concept, among sixteen, inside a course that was already required, in one of two middle-school years.

The other fifteen concepts are worth reading

The list around the AI clause tells you how the legislature was thinking. It includes social media awareness and its effect on mental health; digital privacy and data protection; cybersecurity fundamentals; identifying misinformation and media manipulation; digital footprint and reputation; understanding algorithms and their influence on what people see; screen-time management including problematic media use; cyberbullying; intellectual property, fair use and creative commons; critical thinking in digital environments; and the economic and career implications of digital literacy.

Read together, this is not a technology curriculum. It is a judgment curriculum with technology as the setting — which is the right instinct, and which is why the AI clause leads with capabilities and limitations rather than with tools.

When the standards arrive

The statute says the State Board "shall have established standards for a digital skills course" beginning with the 2027-2028 school year. As of this writing those standards have not been published. The Board's digital literacy page still links the pre-HB 218 career and technical education standards last revised in May 2023, which contain no AI strand at all — AI appears only in two bullets under digital citizenship, about the responsible use of AI tools in creating content and about discerning real from AI-generated material.

There is also an optional advisory technology council that "may review and recommend standards and objectives" for the course. Optional, and advisory.

What this means in practice, right now

If you are a Utah parent: your seventh or eighth grader will take a digital skills course. Whether it contains meaningful AI content in 2026-27 depends entirely on the district and the teacher, because there is no standard to hold them to yet. Asking what is actually being taught is a fair question and the answer will vary enormously.

If you are homeschooling in Utah: HB 218 does not apply to you. It governs what an LEA offers. It is still useful as a shopping list — a course that covers capabilities, limitations, ethics and societal implications is aligned with where your state is going, and Utah Fits All funds can be spent on curriculum.

If you teach the course: you have roughly a year of latitude before standards land, and the statute's four words are a defensible spine in the meantime.

A caution about "aligned to Utah standards"

You will see this claim. There are no published HB 218 standards for a product to align to. What a publisher can honestly show you is a mapping onto the statutory language — the four concepts in clause (iii) and the neighbouring sixteen — and that is worth asking for. What nobody can honestly show you yet is alignment to a standard that does not exist.

ZEROTH publishes a crosswalk against the HB 218 concepts and the Idaho language. It says "aligned to" and "prepares for," never "meets the requirement," because ZEROTH is independent curriculum, is not accredited and is not a state-approved course. We will revise the crosswalk when the Board publishes.