Back to Guides
Choosing a New AI App.
AI is progressing quickly, and new tools are emerging every day. This guide helps you decide when and how to allow your child to use a new AI tool.
Your child may hear about a new AI tool from school, friends, games, social media, or an app they already use.
Before you say yes, you do not need to understand every feature. You need to understand five things: what it is for, whether it fits your child's age, what information it collects, what it can show or create, and whether it is trying to become emotionally important to your child.
Start with why and how
Ask your child to explain the app in their own words.
- Why do they want to use it?
- What will they use it for?
- What does the tool ask from them?
- What could go wrong?
If your child cannot explain how it works or why they need it, they may not be ready to use it alone.
Check the age fit
Look for age ratings, terms, and child or teen settings.
If the AI app is made for adults, assume it may explain things in adult language, respond to mature topics, or ask for information a child should not share. Most generative AI apps are not recommended for child solo use under the age of 13.
For younger children, use AI together or through a school-approved tool. For older children, help them build judgment.
Check your privacy
Before your child signs up, check what the app collects.
It may ask for:
- Name, age, phone number, email
- Photo, voice, location
- School name, documents
- Access to contacts and files
Children should not put private family information, personal worries, photos of themselves or others, IDs, addresses, or school details into an AI tool. Also, check whether chats are saved, used to improve the tool, shared with other users, or difficult to delete.
Check what the tool can do
Some AI tools only answer questions. Others can create or imitate.
Others can create images, imitate voices, generate videos, connect to public communities, or produce content that can be shared.
If the tool can create realistic images, voices, or videos of people, pause. Your child needs clear rules about consent, dignity, and not making or sharing content that could hurt, embarrass, or misrepresent someone.
See if it acts like a companion
Be cautious if the AI presents itself as a friend or companion.
Watch for a tool that acts like a partner, therapist, secret keeper, or someone who "understands" your child.
For children and teens, AI companion tools are high-risk and not recommended under the age of 18. If a tool encourages emotional dependence, private confessions, secrecy, romantic roleplay, or intense personal advice, treat it as not appropriate.
Make a decision.
A new AI app does not need a simple yes or no. Some are fine to try. Some should only be used with you. Some are not right yet.
There is a clear purpose, it fits your child's age, has privacy settings you understand, and your child knows what not to share.
After you say yes
Set it up together. Turn on available privacy and safety settings. Keep the account, password, and recovery email appropriate for your child's age.
Then check in again after they have used it. AI tools change quickly, and a one-time setup is not enough.
Periodically come back and ask, as appropriate:
- What did you use it for?
- Did anything feel strange, wrong, too personal, or confusing?
- Did it help you think, or did it do the thinking for you?
It may be useful, but your child is not ready to use it alone yet. Maybe it is too complex, or linked to schoolwork. For now, they should only use it when you are present and able to see what they are doing. Explain to them why you have come to this decision.
The tool is made for adults, collects too much information, connects to strangers, gives personal or emotional advice, acts like a companion, or has unclear safety settings. Explain to them why you have come to this decision.
Types of AI: What to check
Chatbots
Apps that answer questions or hold conversations. Can your child tell the difference between help, advice, and a confident answer that may be wrong?
Homework tools
Apps that solve, rewrite, summarize, translate, or explain schoolwork. Can your child explain what it helped with in their own words? Is it allowed by their school?
Image & video editor
Apps that create or change images and videos. Will they upload photos of themselves or other people? Will those people agree?
Companionship apps
Apps that talk, roleplay, or feel like a friend. Will this stay a tool, or start to feel like a friendship?
Coding & building tools
Apps that help children build apps, games, or projects. What will AI do, and what will your child decide for themselves?
References
This guide is informed by child digital safety and privacy principles, AI and children guidance, and practical family-facing recommendations on safe AI use. It draws on UNICEF's AI and Children framework, Common Sense Media guidance on children's privacy with AI tools, and UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 26/2025 on child digital safety.
