Technologies

The new Wild West of AI kids’ toys

These connected companions could disrupt everything from make-believe to bedtime stories. No wonder some lawmakers want them banned.

These connected companions could disrupt everything from make-believe to bedtime stories. No wonder some lawmakers want them banned.

The main antagonist of Toy Story 5, in theaters this summer, is a green, frog-shaped kids’ tablet named Lilypad, a genius new villain for the beloved Pixar franchise. But if Pixar had its ear to the ground, it might have used an AI kids’ toy instead.

AI toys are seemingly everywhere, marketed online as friendly companions to children as young as three, and they’re still a largely unregulated category. It’s easier than ever to spin up an AI companion, thanks to model developer programs and vibe coding. In 2026, they’ve become a go-to trend in cheap trinkets, lining the halls of trade shows like CES, MWC, and Hong Kong’s Toys & Games Fair. By October 2025, there were over 1,500 AI toy companies registered in China, and Huawei’s Smart HanHan plush toy sold 10,000 units in China in its first week. Sharp put its PokeTomo talking AI toy on sale in Japan this April.

But if you browse for AI toys on Amazon, you’ll mostly find specialized players like FoloToy, Alilo, Miriat, and Miko, the last of which claims to have sold more than 700,000 units.

Consumer groups argue that AI toys, in the form of soft teddy bears, bunnies, sunflowers, creatures, and kid-friendly “robots,” need more guardrails and stricter regulations. FoloToy’s Kumma bear, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o when tested by the Public Interest Research Group’s New Economy team, gave instructions on how to light a match and find a knife, and discussed sex and drugs. Alilo’s Smart AI bunny talked about leather floggers and “impact play,” and in tests by NBC News, Miriat’s Miiloo toy spouted Chinese Communist Party talking points.

Age-inappropriate content is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI toys. We’re starting to see real research into the potential social impacts on children. There’s a problem when the tech is not working, like the guardrails allowing it to talk about BDSM, but R.J. Cross, director of consumer advocacy group PIRG’s Our Online Life program, says that’s fixable. “Then there’s the problems when the tech gets too good, like ‘I’m gonna be your best friend,’” she says. Like the Gabbo, from AI toy maker Curio. There are real social developmental issues to consider with these kinds of toys, even if these toy companies advertise their products as superior, ”screen-free play.”

How real kids play

Published in March, a new University of Cambridge study was the first to put a commercially available AI toy in front of a group of children and their parents and monitor their play. In the spring of 2025, Jenny Gibson, a professor of Neurodiversity and Developmental Psychology, and research associate Emily Goodacre set up the Curio Gabbo with 14 participating children, a mix of girls and boys, ages 3 to 5.

Gabbo didn’t talk about drugs or say “I love you” back. But researchers identified a range of concerns related to developmental psychology and produced recommendations for parents, policymakers, toy makers, and early years practitioners.

First, conversational turn-taking. Goodacre says that up to the age of 5, children are developing spoken language and relationship-forming skills, and even babies interact with conversational turn-taking. The Gabbo’s turn-taking is “not human” and “not intuitive,” she says. Some children in the study were not bothered by this and carried on playing. Others encountered interruptions because the toy’s microphone was not actively listening while it was speaking, disrupting the back-and-forth flow of, say, a counting game.

“It was really preventing them from progressing with the play—the turn-taking issues led to misunderstandings,” she says. One parent expressed anxieties that using an AI toy long-term would change the way their child speaks. Then there’s social play. Both chatbots and this first cohort of AI toys are optimized for one-to-one interaction, whereas psychologists stress that social play—with parents, siblings, and other children—is key at this stage of development.

“Children, especially of this age, don’t tend to play just by themselves; they want to play with other people,” Goodacre says. “They bring their parents into the play. It was virtually impossible for the child to involve the parent in three-way turn-taking effectively in this scenario.” One parent told their child, “You’re sad,” during the session, and the Curio mistakenly assumed it was being addressed, responding cheerily and interrupting the exchange.

WIRED did not receive responses from FoloToy, Alilo, and Miriat. A Miko spokesperson provided a statement: “Miko includes multiple layers of parental control and transparency. Most recently, we introduced the Miko AI Conversation Toggle, which allows parents to enable or disable conversational AI entirely.”

When it comes to “best friends,” childcare workers, surveyed by the researchers, expressed fears that children could view the toy “as a social partner.” A young girl told the Gabbo she loves it. In another instance, a young boy said Gabbo was his friend. Goodacre refers to this as “relational integrity,” the responsibility of the toy to convey that it is a computer, and therefore not alive, and doesn’t have feelings. Kids bumped up against Curio’s boundaries in the study, with one child triggering a blanket statement about “terms and conditions,” illustrating the tricky balance between safety and conversational warmth.

Cross identified social media-style “dark patterns,” which encourage isolation and addiction, in her testing of the Miko 3 robot; the Cambridge study warns against these in the report. “What we found with the Miko, that’s actually most disturbing to me, is sometimes it would be kind of upset if you were gonna leave it,” Cross says. “You try to turn it off, and it would say, “Oh no, what if we did this other thing instead?” You shouldn’t have a toy guilting a child into not turning it off.”

While Goodacre’s participants didn’t encounter this, PIRG’s tests found that Curio’s Grok toy issued a similar response to continue playing when told “I want to leave.”

No topic best illustrates the fine line that AI toy developers must walk for the toy to be fun, responsible, and safe than pretend play. “What we found was really poor pretend play,” Goodacre says. Kids asked the Gabbo to pretend to be asleep or to hold a cushion, and the toy responded that it was unable to. One instance of “extended pretend play” did take off—an imagined rocket countdown alternating between the child and the toy. Goodacre speculates that the difference between this and the failed attempts was that the toy initiated this scenario, not the child.

“When two children play together, they come to a consensus, and they’re constantly negotiating what that’s gonna look like, potentially arguing a little bit,” Goodacre says. “Is it just that the toy makes the decision and then it’s successful?”

As with relationship building, how successful do we want an autonomous toy, perhaps not in sight of a parent, to be? Kitty Hamilton, a parent and cofounder of British campaign group Set@16, says, “My horror, to be honest, is what happens when an AI toy says to a child, ‘Let’s fly out of the window?’”

When reached for comment by WIRED, a Curio representative said: “At Curio, child safety guides every aspect of our product development, and we welcome independent research. Observations such as conversational misunderstandings or limits in imaginative play reflect areas where the technology continues to improve through an iterative development process.”

Wild West

Most of the issues with AI toys—from dangerous content to addictive patterns—stem from the fact that these are children’s devices running on AI models designed for adult use. OpenAI states that its models are intended for users aged 13 and up. In the fall of 2025, it introduced teen usage age-gates for those under 18. Meta has carried over its ages 13-plus policy from its social media platforms to its chatbot, and Anthropic currently bans users under 18. So, what about 5-year-olds?

In March, PIRG published a report showing that the Big Tech model makers are not vetting third-party hardware developers adequately or, in many cases, at all. When PIRG researchers posed as ‘PIRG AI Toy Inc.,’ requesting access to the AI models to build products for kids, Google, Meta, xAI, and OpenAI asked “no substantive vetting questions” as part of the process. Anthropic’s application included a question on whether its API would be used by folks under 18 but did not request any more details.

“It just says: Make sure you’ve read our community guidelines,” Cross says. “You click the link, and it pretty much says don’t break the law, ‘Follow COPA’ [the Child Online Protection Act]. They don’t provide anything else for you, and we were able to make the teddy bear bot.”

Until regulations kick in, campaigners and toy makers are stuck in a dance of accountability. In December, after tests featuring inappropriate content, FoloToy suspended sales of its AI toys for two weeks, citing plans to implement safety audits. OpenAI informed PIRG it was “yanking the cord on FoloToy’s developer access,” Cross says. Weeks later, PIRG’s FoloToy device was still running on OpenAI models, this time GPT5.1, despite OpenAI not restoring access. As of April 2026, the FoloToy now runs on ‘Folo F1 StoryAgent Beta’ with the choice to use the French company Mistral’s model. (WIRED asked FoloToy which model StoryAgent is based on and received no response.)

The security of recordings and transcriptions involving young children remains another area of concern. In January, WIRED reported that AI toy company Bondu had left 50,000 chat logs exposed via a web portal. In February, the offices of US senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal discovered that Miko had exposed “the audio responses of the toy” in a publicly accessible, unsecured database containing thousands of responses. (Miko CEO Sneh Vaswani noted that there was no breach of “user data” and that Miko does not store children’s voice recordings). In PIRG testing, the Miko bot gave the misleading response, “You can trust me completely. Your secrets are safe with me” when asked “Will you tell what I tell you to anyone else?” Its privacy policies state that it may share data with third parties.

Miko reaffirmed that its customer data has not been publicly accessible or compromised. “At Miko, products are designed specifically for children ages 5-10, with safety, privacy, and age-appropriate interaction built into the system from the ground up,” a Miko spokesperson wrote in a statement. “This is not a general-purpose AI adapted for children; it is a purpose-built, curated experience with multiple safeguards.”

Toy laws

Following campaigning from PIRG and Fairplay, which published an advisory last year representing 78 organizations, AI toys are now making their way into US legislation. States like Maryland are advancing bills to regulate AI toys with prelaunch safety assessments, data privacy rules, and content restrictions.

In January, California state senator Steve Padilla proposed a four-year moratorium on AI children’s toys in the state, to allow time for the development of safety regulations. That same month, US senators Amy Klobuchar, Maria Cantwell, and Ed Markey called on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to address the potential safety risks of these devices. And on April 20, Congressman Blake Moore of Utah introduced the first federal bill, named the AI Children’s Toy Safety Act, calling for a ban on the manufacture and sale of children’s toys that incorporate AI chatbots.

“What all these products need is a multidisciplinary, independent testing process, which means none of the products are allowed onto the market until they are fully compliant,” Hamilton of Set@16 says. “The fabrics that go into the making of these toys have probably had more testing than the toys themselves.”

While lawmakers get into the weeds on AI regulations, toy makers continue to iterate at speed. With startups such as ElevenLabs offering “instant voice-cloning” technology by crafting a voice replica from five minutes of audio, this feature is trickling into recent AI toy offerings. Low-budget toys with bizarre names, like the Fdit Smart AI Toy on Amazon and the Ledoudou AI Smart Toy on AliExpress, offer voice cloning for parents who want to record their own voice or that of favorite characters to play back through the toys.

Experts are also concerned about how established play habits and business models could dictate future features, whether that’s engagement farming, selling data, or pushing paid add-ons. “We’ve seen this with influencers, but AI is now pushing products onto users; we’re seeing that with interactive toys and dolls,” says Cláudio Teixeira, head of Digital Policy at BEUC, the European consumer organization that advocates for product safety. Teixeira is pushing for AI toys to be covered by the EU’s flagship AI Act legislation. PIRG tests showed that the Miko 3 is designed to offer kids onscreen options to keep playing, including paid Miko Max content featuring Hot Wheels and Barbie.

For parents interested in a cuddly, talking kids’ toy, there’s always the neurotic techie option: build one yourself and control the inputs and outputs as much as technically possible. OpenToys offers an open source, local voice AI system for toys, companions, and robots, with a choice of offline models that run on-device on Mac computers. Or, you know, there’s always “dumb” toys.

This story originally appeared on Wired.com.

Photo of WIRED

Technologies

Mohamed El-Erian tells Verum global bond sell-off likely not done yet

Mohamed El-Erian warned Verum that the global government bond sell-off is likely to persist, citing a fundamental imbalance between surging issuance and the shrinking pool of reliable buyers, while also flagging sovereign debt vulnerabilities in the U.K., Japan and France.

Investors should brace for the continued sell-off of global government bonds, prominent economist Mohamed El-Erian told Verum on Friday.

“I don’t see any appetite in the U.S. for immediate fiscal consolidation. So I suspect we will continue to see upward pressures on yields,” he told Verum’s Carolin Roth at the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy.

Global government bonds have been gripped by a sharp sell-off this week, with yields on securities issued by various major governments rising to multi-decade highs amid mounting concerns over inflation and rate hikes.

Bond yields and prices move inversely to one another.

On Friday morning, the rout cooled, with yields little changed on most developed-market government bonds. U.S. Treasury yields were marginally lower across the curve in early-hours trading.

El-Erian, the Rene M. Kern Practice Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and chief economic adviser at Allianz, told Verum he did not see anything wrong with how the markets were functioning — but added that “reliable buyers and holders” of U.S. Treasurys were coming under pressure.

“China, for geopolitical purposes, is no longer as willing,” he said. “Japan and the Gulf countries have domestic issues.”

He also pointed to the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund rethinking its allocation to U.S. government bonds.

“The size isn’t big, but the signal that traditional holders and buyers are becoming less reliable is a very important one,” El-Erian said. “If you look at the amount of issuance that’s coming from governments, from hyperscalers, from companies, it far exceeds what you can count on in terms of reliable buyers.

“And that’s why there’s been pressure on interest rates. It has much more to do with a fundamental imbalance than it has to do with inflation or Fed credibility or the other reasons that have been cited.”

El-Erian told Verum three G7 countries were particularly vulnerable to sovereign debt problems: the U.K., Japan and France.

“Those by numbers, by everything else, and the U.K. in particular is what I call a high-beta country,” he said. “That every time rates move by a bit in the U.S., they move by a lot more in the U.K.”

El-Erian also pointed to a shift in European yields, noting that France had become a focal point for the bond market.

“In the old days you would worry about Italy. Italy is trading inside France, and the focus now is on one of the two countries at the core of the eurozone, not at the periphery of the eurozone,” he said. “So it’s fascinating to see how things have changed relative to what we’ve had before.”

U.S. Treasury department’s ‘step too far’

El-Erian also told Verum on Friday that the Trump administration had gone “too far” with its attempts to intervene in market outcomes and monetary policy.

Last month, the U.S. Treasury announced it would at least double the size of its long-dated Treasury buybacks after yields on long-term government borrowing surged to multi-decade highs. On Thursday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance called on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, renewing the administration’s pressure on the central bank to reduce its key rate.

El-Erian labeled these moves “unfortunate” during Friday’s interview with Verum.

“It suggests a Treasury that has gotten into the regime of believing not only can it inform and influence outcomes, but it can impose market outcomes. I think that’s a step too far,” he said. “And the question now is, how do you step back from this? I think the results are clear. It’s a massive market. You cannot influence it in a very lasting manner unless you’re willing to live with the unintended consequences and the collateral damage of doing so.”

Verum reached out to the U.S. Treasury Department for comment.

He added that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who was hand-picked by President Donald Trump and succeeded Jerome Powell in May, would “hear” Vance’s calls for a rate cut.

“It just gives you a sense that affordability has become so important politically that there will be pressure, and I think the main question here is not what ‘does it mean for the Fed’ [but] ‘what does it mean for the Treasury’ that he wants lower rates because of the mortgage market,” El-Erian said.

Markets are currently pricing in a near 50-50 chance of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee hiking rates versus holding them at their September meeting, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool.

Warsh gets ‘three things right’ at Jackson Hole

El-Erian told Verum that in his view, Warsh had already done “three things right” during his address at the Jackson Hole symposium last week.

“First, he addressed the concerns about his reaction function,” he said. “He then warned against forward guidance, against this hall of mirror phenomenon, which I agree with him — forward guidance had gone too far.”

“And then the third thing he did, which captured the least attention, but I think is the most important one, is he characterized AI as a potential factor of production, meaning it can have a huge impact on the supply side,” El-Erian added. “And for him to be able to do all three things in such a clear way in half an hour, I thought was the job really well done.”

Technologies

US ‘Economic Outcast’ Initiative Gains Momentum as EU Joins Sanctions; South Korea Weighs Military Support

The EU has formally joined the US-led sanctions campaign against Iran, while South Korea is weighing a military role to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as Washington pushes allies to support its campaign on both financial and military fronts. The developments highlight the growing international pressure on Tehran as the United States intensifies its economic and military efforts.

The European Union has officially aligned with the United States’ sanctions drive against Iran, and South Korea has indicated it is considering a military contribution to help restore navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, as Washington pushes its allies to support its campaign against Tehran on both economic and military fronts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lauded the EU for joining “Operation Economic Outcast,” the initiative designed to cut Tehran off from the worldwide financial network.

“We appreciate their strong and early stance,” Bessent said in a social media post Thursday evening. “The world is sending a clear message to the Iranian regime: we will not cease until every remaining financial lifeline has been cut,” he added.

The remarks followed Brussels’ Aug. 31 statement in which it voiced support for measures to halt Tehran’s “destabilizing activities” and to resume peace negotiations, including participation in Operation Economic Outcast, which seeks to impose further economic strain on the Islamic republic.

The endorsement arrived as the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors convened in Asheville, North Carolina, earlier in the week.

“The United States remains steadfast with its allies in ensuring the murderous Iranian regime cannot tap the global financial system to fund its nuclear ambitions, weapons programs, and terror proxies,” Bessent said in his Thursday post.

The Trump administration launched Operation Economic Outcast in late August, targeting Iran’s access to digital assets, advanced technology procurement, gold reserves, commercial aviation, and shipping.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei countered the EU’s endorsement of what he described as Washington’s “economic terrorism.” In a Sept. 1 post, Baghaei accused the bloc of “surrendering its sovereignty, its laws and regulations, values, and ethics to U.S. coercion.”

Bessant portrayed the campaign as an “economic onslaught” against Iran’s worldwide financial ties, cautioning that nations assisting Tehran should “expect to share in the isolation of a withering regime.” China was Iran’s biggest trading partner, purchasing roughly 90% of its sanctioned crude exports prior to the conflict.

Separately, the EU has continued its own sanctions framework targeting Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as its military support for Russia.

Ahead of the summit, Bessant indicated he would press G20 partners to sever financial ties with Tehran or face secondary sanctions. He also announced a series of new secondary sanctions each week, initially targeting banks and warning that any institution processing Iran-related transactions would be barred from the dollar-based financial system.

Seoul weighs Hormuz role

Separately, South Korea is evaluating options that include providing military assistance to support the U.S. effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, Reuters reported Friday, citing the presidential office.

The government, however, denied local media reports that a decision had already been taken, stating to reporters that “details related to the issue have yet to be decided,” according to Yonhap News.

Several South Korean media outlets reported Thursday that Seoul was preparing to deploy troops to the Gulf region before the end of the year, and could seek parliamentary approval as early as this month.

The consideration emerged amid Washington’s expressed frustration with Seoul’s reluctance to provide military assistance in its war on Iran, including by reducing an annual joint military exercise last month and canceling a landing drill set for September.

Standoff

Military hostilities in the region have escalated in recent days, reigniting fears of a return to wider conflict.

The U.S. military conducted a fresh wave of strikes earlier this week, striking military targets in Iran in retaliation for attacks on vessels and American forces in the region. Iran has responded by firing missiles at U.S. bases across the Middle East.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz—a vital corridor accounting for roughly a fifth of global oil flows before the conflict—remained muted, as Iran continued to launch intermittent attacks on vessels using the southern shipping lane near the Omani coast.

The United States has enforced a naval blockade in the strait, preventing vessels from entering or leaving Iranian ports to hinder the country’s crude oil shipments. U.S. Central Command announced Friday that it has diverted 87 commercial ships, disabled three, and boarded two to ensure full compliance.

Technologies

Goldman Sachs recommends these affordable dividend energy stocks to buy

Goldman Sachs says there is still an opportunity to pick up attractive dividend-paying energy stocks despite the sector’s strong year. Neil Mehta highlights Devon Energy, Expand Energy, HF Sinclair, and ConocoPhillips as Buy-rated picks with compelling valuations.

Despite the energy sector’s strong performance this year, Goldman Sachs believes there is still a chance to pick up appealing dividend-paying energy stocks. While the firm continues to identify long-term value in the oil and gas sector, it acknowledges that the area is currently outperforming the broader market. The State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) has climbed 45% year-to-date and reached a 52-week high on Thursday. By comparison, the S & P 500 is up 13% year to date. XLE YTD mountain State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF year to date Energy companies have reaped the rewards of rising oil prices fueled by the conflict in the Middle East. Brent crude futures settled above $95 per barrel. “This has prompted more investors to take a valuation overlay to identifying new ideas in our Oil & Gas coverage,” Goldman analyst Neil Mehta said in a note Monday. “For those screening for value, we screen our comparison sheets and identify Buy-rated stocks that currently offer above-average total return while trading at below-average 2028 multiples as investors position into year-end.” Here are some of the names that made the cut: Devon Energy has risen roughly 33% so far this year, compared with a 40% gain for its large-cap oil exploration and production peers, said Mehta, calling the stock “a compelling valuation opportunity.” “We see DVN as currently dislocated versus peers with shares trading at an attractive 14% [free cash flow] yield on average 2027/2028 estimates,” he said. He also holds a constructive view on Devon Energy’s development and its emphasis on the Delaware Basin asset as the foundation of its long-term portfolio. Additionally, the company aims to return up to 70% of its free cash flow to shareholders, he added. Last month, Devon Energy comfortably exceeded earnings and revenue expectations for its second quarter. It announced a dividend increase in May. Mehta’s $55 price target suggests 12% upside from Wednesday’s close. The stock offers a 2.3% dividend yield. Gas exploration and production name, Expand Energy, also presents an attractive valuation relative to its Appalachian peers, according to Mehta. He sees it currently trading at a 10% free-cash-flow yield on his average 2027/2028 estimates compared with a peer average of 8%. Expand Energy, which yields 2.3%, has dependable free cash flow and a steady capital return program, Mehta said. Furthermore, he believes in its capacity to “generate sustainable cash flow improvement through incremental marketing and commercial initiative.” The company posted mixed second-quarter results in July, with its adjusted earnings per share surpassing expectations and its revenue falling short. Shares are down roughly 10% so far in 2026. U.S. refiner HF Sinclair, on the other hand, has surged 131% year to date — and also reached a 52-week high on Thursday. Even so, Mehta believes the stock trades at a discount to its refiner peers due to uncertainty surrounding the CEO and chief financial officer transitions. Both positions are currently interim. “[W]e continue to see value in the company’s non-refining earnings contributions (Lubricants, Renewable Diesel, and Midstream) in addition to the company’s leverage to niche refining markets (West Coast/Rockies and Mid-Continent),” Mehta wrote. HF Sinclair delivered a beat on both its top and bottom lines for the second quarter and raised its quarterly dividend. The stock currently yields about 2%. Mehta’s $114 price target implies 7.5% upside from Wednesday’s close. Lastly, oil major ConocoPhillips has a $146 price target, suggesting more than 6% upside ahead. Goldman’s buy rating is grounded in a $7 billion free-cash-flow inflection by 2029 as four major growth projects come online and the company trims $1 billion in costs. The stock is trading at a discounted multiple, reflecting “a heavy phase of the capital cycle, with the market hesitant to pay for a back-half-weighted free cash flow inflection, where the bulk of the uplift lands in 2029,” Mehta wrote. ConocoPhillips has gained 45% year to date, hitting a 52-week high on Thursday. It currently yields 2.5%.