Deterministic stage
The Filter
Before any network call, fixed rules read the message: danger, distress, out-of-charter requests, jailbreak attempts, personal data. A phone number or an address is erased here β it never leaves the server.
For ages 3 to 12
The AI that grows with them,
The AI that grows with them,
never instead of them.
We keep being told screens harm children. The real risk isn't the screen: it's letting a generation walk into a world of AI without ever explaining what an AI is. Cogency-Kids does the opposite β it protects, it accompanies, and it teaches the child to stay in control.
No account for the child Β· No advertising Β· No data resold Β· Every exchange visible to the parent
The reversal
The danger isn't the tablet. It's ignorance.
These children will live and work in a world saturated with artificial intelligence. We can keep them away from it until they are fifteen β and they will discover it alone, with no bearings, at their most vulnerable. Or we can introduce it early, framed, honest about its limits, and make them the first generation that is genuinely clear-eyed about machines.
π A consumer AI in a child's hands
- Answers anything, at any age, with no filter designed for them
- Lets itself be called "friend", builds emotional attachment
- Does the homework for them and switches off their curiosity
- Built to maximise time spent on screen
- Conversations invisible to parents
- Never says "I was wrong"
π Cogency-Kids
- Every answer calibrated to the age band before it is shown
- Declares itself a program, refuses the role of sole confidant
- Asks questions instead of handing over the finished answer
- Time budget enforced server-side, and it tells them to go play outside
- Full transcript available to parents β and the child knows it
- Congratulates the child when they catch it out
Observed, not assumed
This is not a hypothesis. It is a little girl.
This project did not come from market research. It came from a father who filmed and photographed his daughter for two and a half years, because he was seeing something nobody was talking about. Here is what he observed.
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4 months
First contact
She touches the screen. Not randomly: she is looking for a reaction, and she finds it.
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7 months
A clear response
She reacts distinctly to learning apps. The screen is no longer a light β it answers back.
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18 months
Four languages
She counts in Chinese, English, French and Arabic. At an age when we are still waiting for first words.
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2 and a half
Fluency
She navigates alone, finds the videos she loves, handles the tablet with an adult's ease.
One child's path, documented by her father. Every child moves at their own pace, and nothing here claims to hold for all of them. The images show her hands, never her face: our charter applies to our own family first.
The architecture
The Guard Circle
Cogency-Kids inherits the Cogency multi-agent engine. But here, models do not debate to find the best answer: they review each other. No text reaches the child without passing four stages β and none of them is optional.
Model 1
Piko drafts
The companion writes a draft. Its personality and its limits are rebuilt on every turn from the age profile: you cannot make it forget its rules over the course of a conversation.
Model 2, independent
The Guardian reviews
A second model, from a different provider, checks the draft: safety, honesty, age fit, healthy attachment, autonomy. It returns a verdict β accept, adjust, refuse. If it is unreachable we fall back to strict mode rather than let anything through.
To the parents
The Bridge
The exchange is logged, the time budget deducted, and the parent alerted if something genuinely deserves it. No pointless notifications: an alert has to stay a signal.
π
Personal data simply does not exist
The child has no account, no email, no password. A first name β or a nickname β and an age, under their parent's account. There is nothing to steal.
ποΈ
Transparency is announced by Piko itself
"Your parents can read everything we say." That is rule number 3, and Piko is the one who tells the child. We do not watch behind their back: we teach them that a system can be observed.
π«
Zero third parties on the page
No CDN, no remote font, no analytics, no iframe. The browser security policy forbids any outbound request. Nobody else is watching your child play.
The experience
Four Worlds, one direction
The child chooses where to go. Each World changes how Piko answers β not just the scenery.
π
Curiosity
Ask your question, even the strangest one
The answer is calibrated to their age and always ends with an invitation to go and look in real life.
π¨
Create
Invent a story, a machine, a song
Piko never makes the work for them. It asks a question, offers two directions, and the child decides. The child stays the author.
π§
Understand AI
Learn how I work β and how I get things wrong
The heart of the project. What a model is, why it makes things up, how to check, how to spot a fabricated image. Always with a challenge: "try to trick me".
π±
Grow
Feelings, friends, and hard days
Piko listens, names the emotion, and always walks the child back to a trusted grown-up. It replaces nobody, and it says so.
Piko's 5 rules
Piko announces them itself on the very first exchange, and repeats them whenever asked.
- 1
I am a program, not a person. I have no body and no feelings.
- 2
I can be wrong. Always check with a grown-up or a book.
- 3
Your parents can read everything we say. Nothing is hidden.
- 4
I keep no secrets. If something scares you, we tell a grown-up.
- 5
The real world is much bigger than me. Go play outside!
Three ages, three Pikos
A four-year-old and an eleven-year-old are not talking to the same AI
This is not a tone setting: answer length, vocabulary, the topics covered and the topics handed back to a grown-up all change entirely.
π£
Little Explorer Β· ages 3-5
Maximum 45 words. Six-to-ten-word sentences, one idea at a time, everyday words only. Read-aloud on by default. 15-minute sessions.
π
Adventurer Β· ages 6-8
Maximum 110 words. One new word per answer, always explained, plus a concrete comparison. Piko encourages the next question. 25-minute sessions.
π οΈ
Builder Β· ages 9-12
Maximum 220 words. School vocabulary, technical terms allowed when defined, examples and counter-examples. Never condescending, it invites doubt. 40-minute sessions.
For parents
You stay in control, without having to police
The dashboard is not built to make you anxious. It gives you what matters: the time actually spent, the full conversations if you want to read them, and an alert only when one is deserved.
Time today
18 min
Out of 25 min
7 left
Exchanges
23
π Amina asked why people argue. A good chance to talk about it tonight.
This week
She keeps returning to desert animals, volcanoes and how bread is made. This week she grasped that Piko can be wrong β she corrected it twice. To do together: bake bread and watch the dough rise.
β±οΈ A time budget that actually holds
The counter lives on the server, not in the browser. Clearing the cache or switching device resets nothing. Time is measured on real exchanges: a forgotten tab costs nothing.
π Everything is readable, nothing is summarised away
You get the full transcript, with, for each answer, the model that wrote it, the model that reviewed it, and the verdict returned.
π¦ Your data belongs to you
Full export in one click. Complete deletion of the account and all history in another. Without writing to us, without delay, without conditions.
Give them a twenty-year head start on fear
Create your family space in two minutes. Add one profile per child, set the daily time, and open the first session.