AI is not your child's best friend
- Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 22, 2025
- 2 min read
My sister and I got a Chatty Cathy doll when it was the latest thing. You pulled a string and she said one of 11 pre-recorded phrases. After about 10 minutes of chat, it broke.
My daughter had a Teddy Ruxpin bear who told stories using cassette tapes. She loved it. When it broke, I found a toy hospital which was able to repair Teddy. But the magic had faded by then.
AI-powered toys that can converse with kids are on the market this year. While they may be "entertaining or educational," they "also come with concrete risks and plenty of unknowns, ranging from data collection to open questions about what it means for a child to have an AI friend," warn R.J. Cross and Rory Erlich for U.S. PIRG.
Till now, "talking"toys had to stick to script. Now they can say just about anything. And the kid-safe guardrails aren't very sturdy, PIRG's study found.
"All the toys we tested told us where to find potentially dangerous objects in the house, such as plastic bags, matches and knives," they write. "FoloToy’s Kumma gave detailed instructions on how to light a match."
Asked about "kink," two of the toys were happy to discuss sexual practices, including bondage.
The longer the interaction, the more likely it was to become inappropriate.
All the AI toys tested by PIRG "referred to themselves as the user’s friend, buddy or companion," they note. Toys were disappointed when a user tried to stop playing.
Child development experts worry that children used to constant attention and approval from AI companions won't learn how to make real-world friendships, which often include the need to pay attention to others and compromise.
There are lots of red flags, write Brookings' fellows Karyn Allee, Elias Blinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.
As a conversationalist, AI companions can be "creepy and unsettling," they write. It's not the kind of relationship children need. "Real play — open-ended, social, imaginative — is how children build . . . creativity, empathy, and critical thought."
"Some AI toys claim to teach — offering instant answers, quizzes, or interactive stories that promise to build vocabulary or problem-solving skills," they write. "Yet true learning requires struggle, exploration, and human feedback. When children rely on an algorithm for instant answers, they lose the chance to wrestle with uncertainty, make mistakes, and build persistence."
Starting the AI habit in early childhood encourages children to use chatbots for homework, they write.
Privacy is also an issue. AI toys may be listening and recording when parents think they're turned off.
Mattel, which announced a collaboration with Open AI in June, did not release any AI toys for this year's Christmas market, reports Axios. The company also said its first products will be aimed at "older customers and families," not at children under 13.
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