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We talk a lot about what AI will do for business. I find myself wondering what it will do to childhood.
Every generation has its defining technology. For mine, it was the internet. For today's children, it will almost certainly be AI. The World Economic Forum estimates that 65% of children entering primary school today will work in jobs that don't yet exist, and that's not just a careers statistic, it's a pretty good indicator of how different the world they're growing into will be from anything we can fully map out for them.
As a parent, I find that genuinely fascinating, and honestly, a lot to get your head around. My son will grow up in a world where intelligent technology isn't a novelty, it's simply part of everyday life, shaping how he learns, plays, communicates, creates, and entertains himself long before he's old enough to think critically about what any of it means.
The opportunities are extraordinary. As Creative Lead and AI Strategist at KVA, I see that every day. What I find myself thinking about more often, though, is what that means for emotional health. Not because I worry about technology itself, but because we're in genuinely new territory here.
What fascinates me is what happens when AI makes those digital experiences even more compelling: entertainment that knows exactly what keeps a child engaged, content that adapts to their interests, and experiences that become increasingly difficult to walk away from. None of that is inherently harmful, but it does raise a question worth thinking about. When the digital world becomes more rewarding than anything in the physical one, what does that do to the skills we build in the spaces in between?
What's happening in schools right now is a fairly accurate snapshot of how unprepared we are for that question as a society. Most primary schools treat AI as a risk, largely because of plagiarism and academic integrity concerns, and yet the same children sitting in those classrooms go home to devices where AI is woven into almost everything they do. A 2025 Pearson report found that 31% of UK primary teachers believe their students aren't adequately equipped for AI's impact, and nearly a quarter said they don't feel confident using it themselves. We haven't just failed to prepare children for this shift, we haven't quite figured out what we think about it yet.
There's a related story in children's emotional health worth understanding. Between 2017 and 2021, the rate of probable mental health disorders in children aged 6 to 16 in England rose from 1 in 9 to 1 in 6, and that shift predates the widespread adoption of generative AI, which makes what comes next a much more important question. If emotional health was already under pressure before AI became this embedded in daily life, the conditions we create around technology in the next decade matter a lot.
That creates a real challenge for parents. How do we make sure children still find joy in things that don't instantly adapt to them, like getting muddy, being bored, trying something and not being immediately good at it, or spending time outside without a reward system, a notification, or an algorithm deciding what happens next?
Those experiences might seem ordinary, but they're often where confidence, resilience, creativity, and emotional wellbeing are built, and it's something I've found myself thinking about more and more, both as a parent and through my work.
If you saw my recent LinkedIn post about Emotional Health, you'll have heard me talk about KVA's Health Applied® concept. In short, it's built on the belief that health exists in more places than most people realise, and that some of the most valuable health opportunities don't come from places traditionally associated with healthcare at all.
For me, that led to an interesting question. If AI is becoming increasingly good at capturing attention, could technology also help children and families rediscover the value of the world beyond the screen?
That thinking eventually became GroWild, an app I founded with the support of KVA. Partly because gardening is a huge passion of mine, but mostly because it encourages many of the things emotional health depends on: curiosity, patience, achievement, connection, and time spent in nature. Technology simply became the bridge between intention and action.
As technology continues to evolve, I suspect one of the most important questions we'll ask isn't what AI can do for us, but how we use it to strengthen the parts of being human that matter most.
That's the value behind Health Applied®.
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