Should I let my 5-year-old talk to AI or Alexa?

For a 4, 5 or 6-year-old, talking to an AI or a smart speaker is best treated as a shared activity, not something they do alone. Young children don't yet understand what a voice assistant is, and research shows they trust it more than they should. Short, supervised chats about dinosaurs or bedtime stories are a very different thing from a child confiding in a speaker on their own.

Why young children are different

The American Academy of Pediatrics summarises the research on how AI affects children:

• In one study, 3 to 6-year-olds believed smart speakers had thoughts, feelings and social abilities.
• Young children judged smart speakers more reliable than people on fact-based questions.
• Little ones often tell smart speakers personal stories and details adults would consider private.

A University of Cambridge study calls this the "empathy gap": children treat chatbots as lifelike confidantes, but the systems don't understand a child's needs. It cites the 2021 case where Alexa suggested a 10-year-old touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug, as reported by CNN. Her mother was in the room and stopped it.

What the guidance says

No pediatric body has endorsed unsupervised AI chat for preschoolers.

• American Academy of Pediatrics: its guidance for ages 2 to 5 is to keep digital media limited, high quality and shared with a parent (Media and Young Minds).

The common thread: real people first, and any AI use with an adult involved.

If you decide to say yes

1. Be in the room. Treat it like reading together, not like a babysitter.
2. Keep it short. A few questions or one story, then back to play.
3. Name what it is. "This is a computer program that's good with words. It isn't a person and it doesn't have feelings."
4. Model checking. "Let's see if that's true in our book."
5. Lock down the device. On a smart speaker, turn off voice purchasing, use the kids' profile if there is one, and review and delete stored recordings. See what happens to kids' voice recordings.
6. Choose child-specific over general. A general-purpose assistant answers anything it's asked. A children's service is built around a child's age.

Where Askie fits

Askie is designed for ages 4-15, adapts its answers to each child's age, and lets parents review conversation transcripts, with settings protected by a parent-only PIN. For the youngest children, we still recommend using it together: a story you build with your child beats any chat they have alone. Our guides on whether AI is safe for 5-year-olds and the best AI voice assistants for kids go into more detail.