Responsible Marketing to Children in the Age of GenAI

According to new UNICEF research children are adopting AI more than three times faster than adults. At least 20 million kids have already used it, and 1 in 10 asks AI for advice on things that worry them. Unsurprisingly, children’s safety is taking center stage at the AI for Good Global Summit this week.

Meanwhile, brands are going all-in on GenAI. AI-generated ads, brand chatbots and AI influencers. But are potential harms to children taken into account when doing so? And how to mitigate the risks so we protect both this vulnerable audience and brands’ reputations?

This is the question that our Managing Director Lidia Velkova addressed during her presentation to members of the WFA Responsible Advertising to Children forum alongside Adam Ingle from the the LEGO Group.

The key highlights:

• Not intentionally marketing to children is not enough anymore. You should assume that they are likely accessing your AI tools or interacting with your AI influencers. And if they can access your AI, you're responsible for what happens when they do.

• What’s needed is to go beyond legal compliance and embedding child-safe principles into AI-powered marketing tools from the ground up.

• There’s an upside to this daunting prospect. The brands that get this right will have a competitive advantage grounded in trust.

At Clever Together Futureproof we help organisations turn these principles into practice.