Before Buying an AI Toy: What Parents Need to Know
AI teddy bears, dolls, robots, and other toys that can talk with children are becoming easier to find. Some are marketed as educational, screen-free, personalised, or able to become a child's friend.
Before considering buying one, it's worth understanding what kind of technology may be inside it.
This recommendation doesn’t apply to every toy that uses some form of AI. Some products use AI for a very limited purpose, such as practising vocabulary, helping with pronunciation, or providing a particular form of assistive support, without inviting general conversation or presenting themselves as a friend. These need to be assessed separately.
Our concern is with toys that contain generative AI chatbots and can hold continuing, personalised conversations with a child.
What is a conversational AI toy?
Some AI enabled toys go far beyond the recorded phrases or simple responses found in traditional talking toys.
A child may be able to ask almost anything and receive a newly generated reply. The toy might remember information, answer personal questions, tell stories, offer advice, or speak as though it’s a friend.
Many of these products use the same kind of generative AI technology found in general-purpose chatbots such as ChatGPT. Placing that technology inside a teddy bear or doll doesn’t remove the risks that come with open-ended AI conversation.
Our longer AI toys analysis looks at the research and evidence in detail. For practical advice, see our parents' guide.
Why does SAIFCA advise against them?
There are several overlapping issues:
The conversation cannot be fully predicted - Independent testing has found AI toys giving dangerous information and discussing sexually explicit subjects. A parent trying the toy beforehand cannot establish what it might say during a different or much longer conversation with their child.
Children can become emotionally attached - Toys can already have an important place in children's imaginative and emotional lives. When it can hold personalised conversations, remember information, offer reassurance, and speak as though it cares about the child, that relationship can become much more significant.
This can affect trust as well as attachment - if a child sees the toy as a friend, they could give greater weight to its advice or begin turning to it with personal questions and worries.
Privacy is difficult to separate from the product - A conversational toy needs to 'hear' what a child says, and some products can collect or process information from conversations, behaviour, voices, or other interactions. A toy may also be present during family conversations or private moments in bathrooms and bedrooms.
These issues don’t disappear if the manufacturer introduces stronger content filters. Even where those filters work as intended, preventing obviously dangerous replies would address one important risk, but it would not resolve questions about emotional attachment, privacy, trust, or the role an artificial companion begins to occupy in a child's life.
You can read a shorter overview of these issues in our parents' guide.
How can I tell if a toy falls into this category?
The product description might not use the word ‘chatbot’.
Phrases such as “AI friend”, “AI companion”, “talk about anything”, “personalised conversations”, “learns about your child”, or references to generative AI can be useful warning signs.
If the answer is yes, and particularly if the toy is also designed to behave like a friend or companion, SAIFCA recommends not buying it for a child.
What about educational AI toys?
Not every product labelled an “AI toy” works in the same way.
A toy might have a very limited purpose, such as practising vocabulary, helping with pronunciation, or providing a particular form of assistive support, without inviting general conversation or presenting itself as a friend.
Products like these need to be assessed separately.
Parents should still establish what the toy actually does, whether it uses generative AI, what information it records or sends elsewhere, whether it connects to the internet, and whether its behaviour can move beyond its stated purpose. An “educational” label alone does not establish that a product is appropriate for a child.
The important distinction is between AI being used for a narrow function and giving a child an open-ended artificial conversational companion.
What if my child already has one?
If your child already uses a conversational AI toy, our parents' guide includes practical advice.
SAIFCA recommends working towards stopping use while taking any attachment the child has formed seriously. While this is being managed, keep use within earshot, switch off unnecessary features, and keep the toy out of private areas.
These measures can reduce some risks, but they should not be taken to mean that continued use has been made safe.
The same issue can arise without a toy
A child does not need an AI teddy bear or robot to begin forming this kind of relationship.
General-purpose chatbots can also start to function as friends, confidants, or sources of emotional support, even when they were not originally designed as dedicated companions.
Our companion guide explains those risks in more detail.
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