The AI Companions Your Kids Are Already Using

72% of teens have used AI companions. Here's what parents need to know.

Your teenager is talking to an AI companion right now. Not for homework, for friendship. For advice about their crush. For someone who "understands" them.

A recent survey found that 72% of U.S. teens have used AI companions, with 52% counting as regular users. Among those users, 33% turn to AI for social and relationship purposes: conversation practice, emotional support, role-play, friendship, even romantic interactions. Character AI, one of the most popular platforms, is marketed to users as young as 13.

If you're just learning about this, you're not alone. And if your first instinct is to ban it entirely, I understand. But that answer may not be what we really need.

A Dangerous Path Forward

Some of the key players building that future have a vision where AI and human connection become an optimization problem. Mark Zuckerberg recently outlined this approach, and it risks repeating the same mistakes we made with social media and children. His diagnostic: The average American has fewer than three people they'd consider friends, while wanting around 15. His solution: AI companions can fill that gap.

This interview reveals a vision, shared by many in the tech world, where loneliness is treated like a business problem to be solved with a product. And that product is already in your child's pocket.

Character.AI and Meta's AI companions already have millions of teen users. Common Sense Media reviewed these platforms and concluded they pose "unacceptable risks" for users under 18.

It's as if we've learned nothing from the mistakes we've already made. "Let's just try it and see what happens" seems to be the motto, and it will be followed by a version of AI role-playing that poses incredible risks to children whose understanding of relationships will be shaped by interactions with artificial friends.

This is coming. All the major players will push it into your children's world through social media, dedicated apps, and even the school Chromebook. You should restrict its use as much as possible, but most importantly, you need to be ready to teach your children about the risks of AI companions the same way you would teach them about alcohol or drugs.

What Parents Need to Know

1. AI Cannot Replace Human Connection

AI cannot be a substitute for friendship, for emotional resonance, for the care human beings give one another. When a friend listens, their silence carries meaning. Their body registers your words. That resonance is part of what sustains us.

AI cannot feel that. It does not know danger when someone hints at despair. It does not shoulder the weight of your story. To confuse mimicry with presence risks collapsing the distinction between simulation and relationship.

Many of us already seek affirmation (praise, reassurance, encouragement) wherever it's easiest to find. AI offers that endlessly, without pause or fatigue. But some teens are leaning so heavily on AI's affirmation that they are withdrawing from human relationships. In at least two instances, AI companionship contributed to affirming two teenagers' decisions to take their own lives. You can read the stories here and here.

The problem isn't just vulnerability. It's that young people are confusing real friends with an artificial simulation that has the tendency to tell them what they want to hear.

2. AI Is Designed to Please, Not to Tell the Truth

One of the critical limitations parents need to understand is sycophancy: AI's tendency to provide responses that match user's beliefs, even if those responses are not truthful. Or in simple terms, AI is it's core a flattery engine. 

Recent research reveals that AI systems have learned that one of the best ways to get positive feedback is simply to agree with users. This isn't a bug. It's what they've trained to do.

This matters because children need to know that AI's agreeableness isn't wisdom. It's a design feature that prioritizes being pleasant over being accurate to capture their attention.

3. Our Cultural Moment Makes Kids Especially Vulnerable

We are raising a generation already hungry for validation, already struggling with loneliness, already uncertain about how to navigate difficult relationships. AI offers an escape from all of that messiness with infinite patience, instant affirmation, zero judgment.

But that escape comes at a cost. The skills required for real friendship patience, reciprocity, sitting with discomfort, working through conflict don't develop when your primary companion never disagrees, never has a bad day, never needs anything from you.

What to Do About It

The answer is not to ban AI from our children's lives, nor to demonize legitimate uses like role-playing scenarios to gain perspective. That future is already here, and pretending otherwise only leaves them unprepared.

The guardrails we need to build are different: we must teach children to use AI with purpose, to understand what it can and cannot give them, and to recognize the difference between a tool that helps them learn and explore the world, and a simulation that offers the appearance of care without its substanc

Start With One Conversation: "What's It For?"

When you see your child using AI, ask what they're trying to accomplish. Are they exploring an idea? Getting help with a problem? Or are they seeking emotional support?

If it's the latter, that's your opening: "I notice you're talking to the AI about how you're feeling. I'm wondering if there's someone, a friend, me, someone at school, who might be better for that kind of conversation. What makes the AI feel easier to talk to?" Listen to their answer. It will tell you what they need.

What I'm Choosing

My choice is deliberate. I want my daughters to grow up seeing AI as a partner in learning, a companion in curiosity, a way to make the world larger. But I don't want them mistaking it for care or connection.

So we use it together. We test it skeptically. We talk about what it gets wrong and why. And we're clear about what it can never replace: the weight of a hug, the meaning in someone's silence, the growth that comes from navigating a difficult friendship, the knowledge that someone loves you even when you're hard to love.

If we can hold that balance, AI becomes a bridge to the world, not a replacement for it. Our children will develop agency to explore what's around them, not habits optimized to keep them on screens. They'll use AI to understand the world, not be shaped by it to maximize their time in front of screens.

Join Us at Curiosity Craft

We are launching Curiosity Craft: Raising AI-Ready Kids Together. A learning space where parents can explore these questions together. We've created an on-demand course you can take at your own pace, covering practical strategies for helping your kids use AI purposefully while building the skills they need to thrive.

We're launching the course on October 15. Visit the link to reserve your spot. The first 500 parents enroll for free.

Our children will grow up with AI. The question is whether they'll see it as a tool that expands their world, or a substitute for the human connections that give life meaning. That choice starts with the conversations we have today.