Artificial intelligence is becoming a major part of how children learn, play, search, and create. As young users spend more time online, understanding child safety and AI is critical, as AI-powered platforms present new risks that traditional online safety measures do not fully address.
Children are different from adults in their cognitive development, digital experience, and ability to recognize manipulation or harmful information. That makes child safety and AI an important issue for parents, educators, technology companies, and policymakers.
The goal should not be to keep children away from AI. Instead, AI systems should be designed around safety, privacy, age appropriateness, transparency, and children’s well-being.
How AI Is Changing Children’s Digital Experiences
AI Is Becoming Part of Everyday Childhood
Children increasingly encounter AI through educational platforms, search engines, recommendation systems, games, social media, and conversational AI. These systems can personalize learning, answer questions, recommend content, and help children explore new ideas.
AI can therefore provide meaningful benefits when it is designed responsibly. For example, adaptive learning systems can adjust educational material to a student’s needs, while accessibility features can help children with disabilities participate more fully in digital experiences.
At the same time, children may not always understand when they are interacting with an algorithm or AI-generated content. This makes digital literacy an important part of modern child protection.
AI Can Create New Opportunities for Learning
AI-powered learning tools can help children practice subjects, receive explanations, generate ideas, and explore topics at their own pace.
However, AI should support—not replace—teachers, parents, and children’s own reasoning. Young users need opportunities to question information, compare sources, and develop independent problem-solving skills.
UNICEF’s updated guidance recognizes both the opportunities AI can provide for children and the need to design these systems around children’s rights, safety, privacy, inclusion, and development.
Why Children Need Different AI Protections
Children may have less experience recognizing misinformation, persuasive techniques, scams, inappropriate content, and manipulative recommendations.
When evaluating child safety and AI, an application that appears acceptable for an adult could still be inappropriate for a child
Child-centered AI safety should consider age, developmental stage, context, and potential impact—not simply whether the technology works as intended.
Major Child Safety and AI Risks
Harmful and Inappropriate Content
AI-powered recommendation systems can influence what users see next. If safety controls are weak, children may encounter violent, sexual, misleading, or otherwise inappropriate material.
Generative AI creates additional concerns because children can encounter synthetic images, videos, audio, and text that may look authentic.
Strong content moderation, age-appropriate defaults, reporting mechanisms, and human oversight can help reduce these risks.
AI Manipulation and Persuasive Design
AI systems can personalize experiences based on user behavior. While personalization can be useful, it can also make digital persuasion more powerful.
Children may have difficulty recognizing when content, advertising, or recommendations are designed to influence their behavior.
AI systems intended for young users should therefore avoid exploitative engagement techniques and prioritize the child’s best interests.
Privacy and Personal Data
AI systems may process information such as search activity, conversations, preferences, location data, or other personal information.
Children may not fully understand what happens to their data after it is collected. In the United States, COPPA provides specific protections for children under 13, including requirements concerning parental consent and children’s personal information. The FTC finalized additional COPPA protections in 2025, including requirements related to third-party advertising, data retention, and children’s data.
Privacy-by-design must be a fundamental component of AI and child protection
How to Promote Child Safety and AI Security
Use Age-Appropriate AI Design
AI products should be designed according to the needs and abilities of different age groups.
Age-appropriate design can include:
- Simple safety explanations
- Safer default settings
- Limited data collection
- Appropriate content filters
- Easy reporting tools
- Strong parental controls
- Clear disclosures when users interact with AI
Developers should test systems with child-safety considerations before releasing them widely.
Strengthen Content Moderation and Safety Controls
AI platforms should combine automated moderation with human review where appropriate.
Safety systems should identify potentially harmful content, prevent unsafe interactions, and provide mechanisms for parents and users to report problems.
For conversational AI, safety measures should also consider situations where children ask about sensitive topics or develop strong emotional relationships with AI systems. UNICEF’s recent work specifically highlights the emerging risks associated with AI chatbots and companion-like systems used by children.
Build Privacy and Age Assurance Into the System
Children’s privacy should not depend entirely on users understanding complicated privacy policies.
AI developers should minimize unnecessary data collection, establish appropriate retention periods, protect sensitive information, and provide understandable privacy controls.
Age assurance can also play a role in determining which features or experiences are appropriate for different users. In February 2026, the FTC issued a policy statement addressing certain uses of personal information for age verification under COPPA, subject to specific conditions.
The Role of Parents, Schools, and AI Companies
What Parents Can Do
Parents can help children develop safer AI habits by discussing how AI works and encouraging children to question what they see online.
Useful practices include:
- Reviewing AI tools before children use them
- Using available parental controls
- Discussing privacy and personal information
- Teaching children to recognize AI-generated content
- Encouraging children to report uncomfortable interactions
- Maintaining open communication about online experiences
The goal should be guidance rather than simply restricting technology.
What Schools and Educators Can Teach
Schools can incorporate AI literacy and digital safety into education.
Students should learn how to:
- Identify AI-generated content
- Check information against reliable sources
- Understand algorithmic recommendations
- Protect personal information
- Recognize manipulation and misinformation
- Use AI responsibly for learning
Teachers can also explain that AI systems can produce inaccurate or misleading answers and should not automatically be treated as authoritative.
What Technology Companies Should Prioritize
Technology companies have a primary responsibility to prioritize child safety and AI design from the very beginning
This includes conducting child-safety risk assessments, minimizing data collection, improving moderation, testing AI behavior, providing transparent controls, and responding quickly to reported harms.
UNICEF’s child-centered AI framework emphasizes safety, privacy, fairness, transparency, accountability, inclusion, children’s development, and appropriate governance.
The Future of Child Safety and AI
Smarter Systems for Child Safety and AI
Future AI safety tools may combine content detection, age-appropriate controls, privacy technologies, behavioral monitoring, and human oversight.
The objective should be prevention rather than simply reacting after harm occurs.
AI can potentially help identify unsafe content and improve digital safety, but automated systems should not be treated as perfect. Human oversight will remain important for complex situations.
Stronger Laws and Industry Accountability
Regulation will continue to influence how companies design AI systems for younger users.
In the United States, COPPA remains an important framework for protecting children’s online privacy, while updated FTC requirements are increasing protections around children’s data and targeted advertising.
Globally, UNICEF’s updated 2025 guidance calls for child-centered AI policies that address safety, privacy, fairness, transparency, inclusion, and children’s best interests.
Creating a Safer Future for AI and Child Protection
The future of AI should not simply be about making systems more intelligent. It should also be about making them safer and more appropriate for the people who use them.
Children should be able to benefit from AI for education, creativity, accessibility, and exploration without being unnecessarily exposed to manipulation, privacy violations, harmful content, or unsafe interactions.
A child-centered approach puts safety, privacy, development, and human well-being at the center of AI design.
Conclusion
AI is becoming an increasingly important part of children’s digital lives. It can support learning, creativity, accessibility, and communication, but it can also introduce risks involving harmful content, manipulation, privacy, misinformation, and unsafe interactions.
Protecting children requires more than traditional AI safety measures. Developers need age-appropriate design, stronger privacy protections, effective content moderation, responsible age assurance, and meaningful human oversight.
Parents and educators also have an important role in helping children develop AI literacy and safer digital habits.
Ultimately, child safety and AI should be approached as a shared responsibility. When technology companies, families, schools, and policymakers work together, AI can become a useful tool for children while reducing unnecessary risks.