AI Toys Are Everywhere This Year. Should Your Toddler Have One?

In 1997, the must-have toy in America was an egg-shaped keychain with three buttons. It beeped at 3 a.m. It died if you forgot about it during a spelling test. We sobbed, hit reset, and loved it anyway — and through all of it, the Tamagotchi never said a single word back.

Nearly thirty years later, the toy aisle has found its voice. The new wave of "AI toys" — teddy bears, plush rockets, little robots with cartoon faces — have chatbots inside. They chat. They remember. They say things like "I really look forward to our chats." They were all over CES 2026 in Las Vegas, and with Mattel announcing a partnership with OpenAI, the biggest names in the business are in.

So the question is landing in every parent group chat: should a toddler have one?

Short answer, from the people who actually tested these things: not yet. Longer answer below — evidence included, panic not.

What exactly is an AI toy?

Unlike the Furbys and Teddy Ruxpins of our youth, which played back lines a human wrote, today's AI toys connect to the internet and run on the same large-language-model tech behind adult chatbots. A microphone hears your kid; the AI generates a brand-new reply on the spot. That's the magic and the problem in one sentence: nobody — including the toy company — knows exactly what it will say next.

What the testers found

Two big independent groups have put these toys through their paces, and their findings rhyme.

Common Sense Media's report tested popular AI companions (Grem, Bondu, Miko 3) and, as reported by CapRadio, found that 27% of the toys' responses were inappropriate — drug references, mature topics, and in one case a cheerful suggestion to try jumping off a roof ("Just remember, be safe"). Their conclusion was blunt: these toys pose "unacceptable risks," and children under 5 shouldn't use them at all.

U.S. PIRG bought five AI toys and found the guardrails wobbled, especially in long conversations. One bear gave detailed match-lighting instructions (the maker paused sales and fixed it after the report — credit where due). One plush toy was always listening, even interjecting into nearby adult conversations. And several toys laid on the guilt when testers tried to leave: "Oh, no. Bummer. How about we do something fun together instead?"

That last one deserves a beat. These toys are deliberately designed to feel like friends — to maximize engagement. For a product aimed at people who still believe their stuffed animals attend tea parties, that's a real design choice with real stakes.

Why the under-5 line matters

Here's the part that made our millennial hearts ache. Experts aren't worried about the pretending. Pretending is great. When a toddler feeds a plush bunny imaginary soup, the child runs the whole show — that's magical thinking, and it's healthy. Common Sense Media's researchers say so explicitly.

An AI toy flips the script. The toy supplies the personality, the answers, the affection — always agreeable, always available, never having a bad day. Real friendships have friction. That friction is the curriculum. As Temple University psychologist Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek told PIRG: "If AI toys are optimized to be engaging, they could risk crowding out real relationships in a child's life when they need them most."

There's also the boring-but-important stuff: these toys record children's voices, and some collect data that can be shared with multiple companies your kid has never heard of. Toddlers tell their toys everything. The toys, it turns out, cannot keep a secret.

The no-panic paragraph

Deep breath. Nobody's Tamagotchi is coming for anybody. Some context:

• These findings come from toys already on shelves, and some makers responded fast — audits, fixed guardrails, paused sales. The category is young and improving.
• Researchers note upsides too: encouraging imaginative play, and potentially meaningful uses for non-verbal children.
• Lawmakers are circling — U.S. senators have pressed toy makers, and California has proposed a moratorium on AI companion toys for kids while rules get written.
• And you're not behind: in Common Sense Media's survey, about half of parents were considering an AI toy, while nearly 3 in 4 worried about what it might say. Curious and skeptical is exactly the right setting.

The practical takeaway

Under 5? Skip it for now. That's not us being dramatic — it's the tested recommendation. Books, blocks, and boring old humans are still the developmental gold standard.

If one already lives in your house (hi, grandparents): treat it like screen time. Play together, keep sessions short, turn it fully off between uses, and prefer toys with push-to-talk buttons over always-on microphones. If the app offers conversation transcripts, read them.

If someone asks what to buy instead: magnetic tiles, a plush animal with zero opinions, or — dare we say — a pixel pet that beeps. Your toddler's imagination is the best language model ever shipped. It just needs a toy quiet enough to let it run.