The new wild west of artificial intelligence games for kids

The main opponent to Toy Story 5in theaters this summer, is a green, frog-shaped children’s tablet called the Lilypad, a genius new villain in the beloved Pixar series. But if Pixar had had its ear to the ground, it might have used an AI-powered children’s toy instead.

AI toys seem to be everywhere, marketed online as a friendly companion for children as young as three years old, and still a largely unregulated category. Creating an AI-based companion is easier than ever, thanks to biometric prototyping and programming software. In 2026, these products are popular among cheap trinkets, lining the halls of trade shows such as CES, MWC, and the Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair. By October 2025, there were more than 1,500 AI toy companies registered in China, and Huawei’s Smart HanHan plush toy sold 10,000 units in China in its first week. Sharp put the AI-powered talking toy PokeTomo on sale in Japan in April this year.

But if you browse AI toys on Amazon, you’ll mostly find niche players like FoloToy, Alilo, Miriat, and Miko, the latest of which claims to have sold over 700,000 units.

Courtesy of Miko

Consumer groups argue that AI toys, in the form of soft bears, bunnies, sunflowers, critters and kid-friendly “robots,” need more guardrails and stricter regulations. FoloToy’s Kumma Bear, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o, when tested by the Public Interest Research Group’s New Economics team, gave instructions on how to light a match and find a knife, and discussed sex and drugs. Alilo’s intelligent AI rabbit talked about skins and “impactful play,” and in tests conducted by NBC News, Merriat’s Milo toy came up with CPC talking points.

Age-inappropriate content is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI games. We’re starting to see real research on the potential social influences on children. There’s a problem when technology doesn’t work, like guardrails that allow her to talk about BDSM, but RJ Cross, director of consumer advocacy group PIRG’s Our Online Life program, says that’s fixable. “Then there are the problems when the technology gets too good, like, ‘I’ll be your best friend,’” she says, like the game Jabu, from AI-powered game maker Curio. There are real social development issues to consider with these types of games, even if game companies advertise their products as superior “screen-free gaming.”

How real children play

A new study conducted by the University of Cambridge, published in March, was the first to put a commercially available artificial intelligence toy in front of a group of children and their parents and monitor their play. In the spring of 2025, Jenny Gibson, professor of neurodiversity and developmental psychology, and co-researcher Emily Goodacre, created Curio Gabbo with 14 participating children, a mix of girls and boys, ages 3 to 5.

Gabo didn’t talk about drugs or say “I love you.” But researchers have identified a range of concerns about developmental psychology and issued recommendations for parents, policy makers, playmakers and early years practitioners.

First, take turns in the conversation. Goodacre says that until the age of five, children are developing spoken language and relationship skills, and even infants react to taking turns in conversation. She says the jabu’s role-taking is “not humane” and “not intuitive”. Some of the children in the study were not bothered by this and continued to play. Others experienced interruptions because the game’s microphone wasn’t actively listening while she spoke, disrupting the back-and-forth flow of the counting game, for example.