“I can’t imagine how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT.” On December 9, 2025, on the set of the American television show “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, OpenAI boss Sam Altman openly acknowledged his dependence on artificial intelligence (AI) to take care of his baby, a few months old. A controversial outing which unleashed social networks, questioning the place of AI in daily family life.
However, the phenomenon is very real. More and more parents are turning to chatbots and other 2.0 tools to help them manage their children. “Today, AI is becoming the automatic response for everything, parenting is no exceptiondeciphers Sabine Duflo, clinical psychologist and family therapist specializing in digital practices. Before, we tried to find answers in books or to discuss with more experienced relatives, today it is through the internet and AI in particular.”
According to a study conducted in April 2025 by the investment fund Menlo Ventures among some 5,000 American adults, 79% of parents of children under 18 use AI to help them in their family life. Faced with fatigue, stress and loss of bearings, ChatGPT and others provide concrete and rapid responses to disillusioned parents.
Logistical support
Finding today’s menu, choosing clothes for school or imagining an activity on a rainy Sunday: for many, AI functions as a daily personal assistant. “When I realized that AI could lighten my mental load, relieve us of certain tasks and help us organize ourselves, I started using it daily”says Lilian Schmidt, mother of two children aged 4 and 14. For this 34-year-old woman who lives in Zurich (Switzerland), the arrival of ChatGPT was a real revolution, to the point that she began sharing videos on the subject on her social networks to illustrate her use of AI in her life as a mother.
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Whether it is to optimize family routines, plan meals for the week or help manage school emails, Lilian Schmidt claims to have saved fourteen hours per week in her schedule. “I used to spend hours doing Google searches and browsing forumsshe recalls. ChatGPT can compile the most relevant information in seconds and tailor it to your specific situation. It’s a great tool for parents.”
“I sometimes ask questions to Doctolib’s AI assistant for my 1-year-old daughter on topics of health, growth or education.”
Free access, easy to use, personalized: the conversational agent developed by OpenAI has everything to conquer exhausted parents. According to the survey commissioned by Menlo Ventures, 29% of parents surveyed use artificial intelligence every day. “AI very quickly offers solutionsanalyzes Cécilia Creuzet, co-founder of the parenting support application May, interviewed in October by Le Monde. For example, if you write “my daughter no longer wants to eat vegetables”, the AI will suggest making fun plates. Then she will suggest recipes. And finally, make your shopping list.”
AI, medical and educational coach
Some push the use much further. If artificial intelligence tools facilitate daily logistics, why couldn’t they intervene on deeper issues, such as education or health? To understand crying, manage anger or approach a serious discussion, turning to AI has become a reflex for many parents, especially young ones. “I sometimes ask questions to Doctolib’s AI assistant for my 1-year-old daughter on health, growth or education topicstestifies Marina, 31, who for example sought advice for her daughter’s first exposure to the sun. These are verified sources, so I have confidence. I feel reassured and relieved.”
Bogged down in educational choices, other parents decide to turn to technology to guide them. This is the case of Marie-Emmanuelle, a 41-year-old single mother, who converted in the face of fear of doing wrong and who confided in journalist Clara Georges for Le Monde. “When you’re a parent, you have a lot of micro-decisions to make all the time and I’m a mom all by myself. I don’t always have the opportunity to exchange”she justifies. The conversion took place recently.
Disconcerted by the behavior of her 2 and a half year old daughter who was about to enter kindergarten, Marie-Emmanuelle then turned to Copilot, the AI tool developed by Microsoft, to find answers. “He informs me that this is definitely not the time to punish or raise your voice and explains to me that this is a difficult time for her and that she is expressing her emotional discomfort as best she can. He advises me to reassure her.” A suggestion that this mother applied and which, according to her, bore fruit. “Thanks to AI, I know how to help my daughter relieve the stress of the day and I save myself from unnecessary battles”she concludes.
For Sabine Duflo, becoming a parent is a confusing process that has to be learned. AI then represents a source of reassurance to reassure doubting parents. “It can give good ideas that are quite positive and measuredadmits the psychologist. But the risk is to be dispossessed of one’s educational common sense.”
Errors, oversights and approximations
We must not forget that artificial intelligence tools do not have infused science and still make a lot of errors. In a study published in September 2024, researchers from the University of Kansas, for example, showed that certain ChatGPT responses to parental questions were erroneous. Concerning the theme of health in particular, the subject is worrying. “When it is not alarming, we can ask the AI for a first opinion, but I will never rely on it to replace medical consultations, especially for a newborn”says Marina.
If, like her, many parents assure that they do not rely on it, the real observation is slightly different. According to Cécilia Creuzet, 40% of the questions asked to AI revolve around health. “What is dangerous is to trust a single reference and not multiply the sourcesindicates Sabine Duflo. When I hear from fellow childcare workers who say that young mothers use applications to know when to breastfeed, it worries me.”
“Parents are more and more often on their screens and less with their children. However, the answers are in the child and not in the AI, we must trust ourselves and learn by doing.”
AI responses also remain removed from specific context and unable to understand the subtleties of each situation. Also contacted by Le Monde, Marguerite, 40, asked the machine for help for her 8-month-old baby who was waking up every hour to breastfeed. Verdict: a detailed and structured action plan… but it didn’t work. “The theory is very nice, but after two weeks, even asking the AI for adjustments every three days, my boy was not sleeping any better”reports the forty-year-old, who then turned to books by psychologists that she considers more effective.
“The information provided may be incorrect, out of date, misleading or incompletepoints out Lilian Schmidt. It remains essential to verify them and consult real-life experts on important questions.”
Putting people back at the center
If artificial intelligence can become a crutch for organizing, orienting and reassuring oneself, it is dangerous to make it a substitute for professional or parental judgment. Apart from urgent cases, you must above all be willing to experiment and give yourself time. “Parents are more and more often on their screens and less with their childrenobserves Sabine Duflo. However, the answers are in the child and not in the AI, we must trust ourselves and learn by doing.”
The digital specialist therefore recommends putting humans back at the center, by investing in the unique bond that is forged between each parent and their child. “It is the absence of shared time that makes parents destitutecontinues the therapist. By observing your baby, you learn to decode him, to differentiate between crying of sadness, crying of tiredness or crying of hunger.
“It’s not about replacing us as parents, but on the contrary that we refocus on the important things. I feel less stressed, more supported and therefore more present for my children.”
Although irremediably dependent on artificial intelligence, Sam Altman clearly underlined the irony of his comments about Jimmy Fallon. “Obviously people have raised their kids without ChatGPT for a long time, I know it’s totally possible”smiled the American businessman in front of a laughing presenter and crowd.
The boss of AI actually raises the threat of a worrying paradigm shift: the disempowerment of parents – and more generally of human beings – in the face of a turnkey tool provided by artificial intelligence. “By delegating everything to machines, we lose our common sensewarns Sabine Duflo. Could this lead to losing parenting skills? It’s possible.”
Intuition, judgment and personal experience remain essential in raising children. “It’s not about replacing us as parents, but on the contrary that we refocus on the important thingsnuance Lilian Schmidt. I feel less stressed, more supported, more emotionally balanced and therefore more present for my children.” The AI enthusiast would even like 2.0 tools to go further in the assistance provided to parents, for example by anticipating the needs of each family without prior request. An innovation that should probably arrive very quickly, for better or for worse.
