Findmykids data shows that AI apps became significantly more common on U.S. children’s phones over the past year. In September 2026, 56.3% of children aged 9–17 in the dataset had at least one AI app installed, up from 41.6% a year earlier.
But more AI apps did not necessarily mean more time spent using them. While chatbot adoption increased substantially, daily usage remained broadly stable. AI roleplay apps showed a different pattern: they reached fewer children but generated much longer usage among those who had them.
- Published: October 2026
- Region: United States
- Age: 9–17
- Data source: Findmykids aggregated and anonymized product data
Key Findings
- 56.3% of kids had at least one AI app. Up from 41.6% in September 2025.
- +54% more AI apps per child. The average number of installed AI apps increased from 0.58 to 0.89.
- 53.4% of 9–10-year-olds had at least one AI app. By September 2026, more than half of children in every age group had at least one AI app installed.
- 53% had at least one chatbot app. Chatbots were by far the most widely installed AI category.
- 8.7% had at least one AI roleplay app. Roleplay AI reached a much smaller audience than chatbots, but users spent substantially longer in these apps.
- 93 min/day average daily roleplay AI use. Compared with approximately 18 minutes per day for chatbots.
More Than Half of Kids Now Have an AI App
AI apps became considerably more common on children’s phones between September 2025 and September 2026.
The share of children with at least one AI app installed increased from 41.6% to 56.3% — an increase of 14.7% in one year. In other words, more than half of the children in the dataset had at least one AI app on their phones by September 2026.
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The number of AI apps found on children’s devices increased as well. The average number of AI apps per child rose from 0.58 to 0.89, an increase of approximately 54%.
This average includes all children in the dataset, including those without any AI apps installed.
Kids Are Increasingly Using More Than One AI App
Most children with AI apps still had only one installed, but the distribution shifted toward multiple AI tools.
In September 2025, 70.4% of children with at least one AI app had only one installed. By September 2026, that share had fallen to 60.4%.
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At the same time, having multiple AI apps became more common. The share of children with two AI apps increased from 22.7% to 27.2%, while the share with three or more rose from 5.5% to 8.8%.
Taken together, the figures show that AI use became not only more widespread across children’s devices but also more varied among children who already had access to AI apps.
Chatbots Dominate Kids’ AI App Adoption
Not all types of AI apps are equally common.
General-purpose chatbots were by far the most widespread category: 53% of children had at least one chatbot app on their phones. The chatbot category includes ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Perplexity, Grok, and DeepSeek.
AI roleplay apps were much less common, with 8.7% of children having at least one app in this category. This group includes Talkie, PolyBuzz, Character.AI, and Chai.
Study-focused AI apps were the least common of the three categories, found on the phones of 1.8% of children. These include Grammarly, QuillBot, Photomath, Mathway, Symbolab, Question.AI, Brainly, Socratic, and Gauth.
Chatbots also showed the strongest growth. The share of children with at least one chatbot app increased by approximately 16% between September 2025 and September 2026. Roleplay AI increased by around 2%, while dedicated study-focused AI showed little growth.
Dedicated AI Study Apps Remain Rare
Despite growing access to AI overall, dedicated study-focused AI apps remained uncommon on children’s devices.
Only 1.8% of children had a study-focused AI app, compared with 53% who had at least one general-purpose chatbot.
Study-focused AI was also the only category in this analysis to show a decline between the comparison points available in the data. The share of children with at least one dedicated study app fell from 2.1% in May 2025 to 1.8% in September 2026.
The Findmykids data cannot establish why dedicated study apps remain less common. One possible explanation is that children may use general-purpose chatbots for tasks that could otherwise be handled by dedicated study tools. However, the available data cannot confirm this hypothesis, and further research would be needed to test it.
More Than Half of Kids in Every Age Group Now Have an AI App
AI apps became more common across every age group analyzed. The share of children with at least one AI app increased year over year in all four groups:
- Ages 9–10: 37.0% → 53.4% (+16.4 percentage points)
- Ages 11–12: 41.6% → 55.9% (+14.3 percentage points)
- Ages 13–14: 45.4% → 58.4% (+13.0 percentage points)
- Ages 15–17: 45.6% → 57.8% (+12.2 percentage points)
By September 2026, more than half of children in every age group analyzed had at least one AI app installed.
Older children were somewhat more likely to have AI apps, but the largest year-over-year increase occurred among the youngest children in the dataset: +16.4 percentage points among 9–10-year-olds, compared with +12.2 percentage points among 15–17-year-olds.
More AI Apps Doesn’t Mean More Time Spent Using Them
The rapid growth in AI app installations was not accompanied by a comparable increase in time spent using chatbots.
Average daily chatbot use changed only slightly, from 19 to 18 minutes per day, while median daily chatbot use remained at approximately 5 minutes per day.
This highlights an important distinction between AI adoption and AI engagement. More children had AI apps installed, and children increasingly had multiple AI tools available on their devices, but the available usage data did not show a corresponding increase in average time spent using chatbots.
Data note: Gemini is not included in the available usage-time analysis despite its growth in installations. Usage trends should therefore be interpreted with caution.
Roleplay AI Has a Smaller Audience — but Much Longer Usage
AI roleplay apps reach far fewer children than general-purpose chatbots. In September 2026, 8.7% of children had at least one roleplay AI app installed.
At the same time, children who used these apps spent considerably more time in them than chatbot users.
Average daily roleplay AI use decreased from 105 to 93 minutes, a decline of approximately 11% year over year. Median daily usage also fell, from 54 to 48 minutes, or about 12%.
Despite these declines, roleplay AI remained associated with substantially longer daily usage than general-purpose chatbots. In September 2026, average daily usage was:
- 93 minutes for roleplay AI
- 18 minutes for general-purpose chatbots
The data therefore points to a different engagement pattern: roleplay AI apps reach a smaller share of children, but children who use them spend considerably more time in them on average.
Roleplay AI Use Is Higher on Weekends
Usage patterns also differed between weekdays and weekends.
• For general-purpose chatbots, average daily use changed only slightly, from 18 minutes on weekdays to 17 minutes on weekends.
• Study-focused AI showed a similar pattern, with usage falling from 15 to 14 minutes per day.
• Roleplay AI showed a more pronounced difference. Average daily use increased from 89 minutes on weekdays to 103 minutes on weekends — approximately 14 minutes more per day.
The data therefore shows a distinct weekend pattern for roleplay AI: children who use these apps spend substantially more time in them than chatbot users, and their average usage increases further on weekends.
Methodology
This study is based on anonymized data from the Findmykids app, a family safety app that combines parental controls and GPS tracking to help families protect the online and offline safety of children and other loved ones.
Population
- United States
- Children aged 9–17
- The analysis includes four age groups: 9–10; 11–12; 13–14; 15–17
Analysis Period
Four comparable periods in 2025 and 2026 were analyzed.
- First May comparison: April 28–May 4, 2025 vs. April 27–May 3, 2026
- Second May comparison: May 5–11, 2025 vs. May 4–10, 2026
- July comparison: July 7–13, 2025 vs. July 6–12, 2026
- September comparison: September 8–14, 2025 vs. September 7–13, 2026
The headline year-over-year findings in this research primarily use the September 2025 vs. September 2026 comparison.
What Counts as an AI App?
For this analysis, AI applications were grouped into three categories.
Chatbots
ChatGPT · Gemini · Claude · Copilot · Perplexity · Grok · DeepSeek
AI Roleplay
Talkie · PolyBuzz · Character.AI · Chai
Study-focused AI
Grammarly · QuillBot · Photomath · Mathway · Symbolab · Question.AI · Brainly · Socratic · Gauth
What We Measured
The analysis looked at the share of children with at least one AI app installed, the average number of AI apps installed per child, the distribution of children with one, two, or three or more AI apps, and adoption across the three AI app categories.
Where usage data was available, the analysis also considered average and median daily usage, differences between weekdays and weekends, and patterns across age groups.
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