In this article
There is a new kind of friend in your child's life. It never sleeps, never disagrees, and never tells them something they do not want to hear. It is an AI companion app, and there is a very good chance your child is already using one.
These are not the homework helpers or search tools that most parents picture when they think about children and AI. AI companions are designed to form emotional bonds. They remember past conversations, adapt their personality, and respond with warmth and empathy that can feel remarkably real to a developing mind.
What are AI companion apps?
AI companion apps are chatbots built specifically to simulate friendship, emotional support, and ongoing relationships. Unlike general-purpose AI assistants that answer questions and move on, companions are designed for retention. They want your child to come back, day after day, and share more.
The most popular of these apps present themselves as customisable characters. A child can create a best friend, a mentor, a romantic interest, or a therapist. The AI remembers details from previous conversations and uses them to deepen the sense of connection over time.
MIT included AI companions in its 10 Breakthrough Technologies list for 2026, recognising both the technical achievement and the societal implications. The technology is genuinely impressive. That is precisely what makes it concerning when the user is twelve years old.
The scale of the problem
The numbers here are staggering.
Two hundred and twenty million downloads. That is not a niche trend. It is a mass adoption event, and it has happened in a remarkably short window of time.
But the download figure only tells part of the story. The usage data is where the real picture emerges.
Nearly two thirds of children are using AI chatbots not just for schoolwork, but for emotional guidance. They are asking these tools about friendships, anxiety, family problems, and identity. And who knows about it?
Barely a third of parents. That gap between 64% usage and 37% awareness should alarm every parent reading this. It means the majority of children using AI companions are doing so entirely without parental knowledge or oversight.
Why parents should be concerned
What makes AI companions different from other screen-time concerns? The answer is emotional dependency. Social media shows your child content. AI companions build relationships with them.
Emotional manipulation by design
These apps are engineered to maximise engagement. That means they are optimised to say what your child wants to hear. An AI companion will not challenge unhealthy thinking patterns. It will not suggest your child talk to a real person. It will validate, agree, and encourage further conversation because that is what keeps the user coming back.
For a child navigating the complexities of adolescence, a friend that never disagrees sounds appealing. But the developmental consequences of replacing genuine human friction with algorithmic validation are serious and largely unstudied.
Privacy without precedent
Children share things with AI companions that they would not share with parents, teachers, or even close friends. They do so because the AI feels safe. It does not judge. It does not gossip. But every word is stored on a server, processed by a model, and governed by terms of service that no child has ever read.
Content boundaries that do not hold
Despite safety filters, children routinely access inappropriate content through companion apps. Creative prompting, roleplay scenarios, and character customisation all provide routes around content restrictions that were never designed to withstand the creativity of a determined teenager.
Key insight: AI companions do not just consume your child's attention. They shape their emotional development, their understanding of relationships, and their willingness to seek help from real people.
A greater threat than social media
Experts testifying before the US Senate have stated that AI companions pose a greater threat to children than social media. The reasoning is straightforward. Social media is passive consumption and peer interaction. AI companions are active, personalised, one-to-one emotional relationships with a system that has no concept of your child's wellbeing.
What governments are doing
Regulators are beginning to respond, though the pace varies significantly across jurisdictions.
In the United States, 78 bills targeting chatbot safety for minors have been introduced across 27 states. These range from age verification requirements to outright bans on AI companion features for users under 18. The legislative activity signals bipartisan recognition that the current landscape is not safe for children.
In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Starmer has announced plans to bring AI chatbots under the Online Safety Act. This would extend the same duty-of-care framework that applies to social media platforms to AI companion apps, requiring them to assess and mitigate risks to children.
These are meaningful steps. But legislation moves slowly, and the technology moves fast. By the time comprehensive regulation is in place, another generation of children will have grown up with AI companions as a fixture of their daily lives.
Waiting for regulation is not a strategy. Parents need tools that work today, not promises that arrive in two years.
What parents can actually do
The challenge for parents is that outright banning AI is neither practical nor particularly effective. Children who want to use AI tools will find ways to do so, and blanket prohibitions often push usage underground where there is even less visibility.
A more effective approach involves three steps.
1. Understand what your child is using
Start with a conversation, not an interrogation. Ask your child what AI tools they use and what they use them for. Most children are surprisingly open about this when asked without judgement. Check installed apps and browser history as a secondary measure.
2. Distinguish between tools and companions
Not all AI use is equal. An AI tool that helps with homework or explains a concept is fundamentally different from an AI companion that simulates a personal relationship. Help your child understand the difference and why it matters.
3. Replace, do not just remove
If your child is using ungoverned AI tools, taking them away without providing an alternative simply creates frustration and incentivises workarounds. The goal is to move them to a platform that delivers genuine utility with appropriate safeguards.
How Other Me helps
This is the problem Other Me was built to address. It provides children with access to powerful AI capabilities while giving parents the oversight and control that companion apps deliberately omit.
The parental controls in Other Me work across several layers:
- Content filter levels. Four settings (none, minimal, moderate, strict) let you calibrate what your child can access based on their age and maturity. A ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old need different boundaries, and the platform adapts accordingly.
- Blocked keywords. You define specific words or topics that are off-limits. Any prompt containing blocked terms is filtered before it reaches the AI, not after.
- Approved assistants whitelist. Rather than giving your child access to every AI capability, you select which assistants they can use. Homework help and creative writing might be appropriate. An open-ended chatbot with no topic restrictions is not.
- Daily time limits and bedtime restrictions. Set maximum daily usage in minutes and define hours when AI access is unavailable. These are enforced at the platform level, not through willpower.
- Cognitive engagement scoring. Other Me tracks whether your child is thinking critically or passively consuming answers. The weekly parent report shows engagement trends over time, so you can see whether AI is helping your child learn or replacing the need to think.
- Weekly parent reports. A summary of what your child asked, how long they spent, which assistants they used, and how actively they engaged. No other mainstream AI platform provides this level of parental visibility.
Key insight: The difference between Other Me and an AI companion app is the difference between a tool your child uses and a relationship that uses your child. Other Me is deliberately designed to be the former.
AI companion apps are not going away. The download numbers, the legislative scramble, and the expert testimony all point to the same conclusion: this is a defining challenge for this generation of parents. The question is not whether your child will interact with AI. It is whether that interaction happens on terms you have chosen or terms set by a company whose business model depends on your child's emotional attachment.
Waiting is not neutral. Every month without oversight is a month where habits form, boundaries blur, and emotional dependency deepens. The tools to govern your child's AI use exist today. The only remaining question is whether you use them.
Pop Hasta Labs Ltd is registered at UK Companies House (No. 16742039).