ISLAMABAD: The interest shown by children in artificial intelligence tools has doubled during the past year, whereas video-streaming platform YouTube remained one of the most popular applications among kids across the globe.

In a report on kids’ digital interests covering the period from May 2024 to April 2025, Kaspersky said that fascination with AI-powered chatbots has been growing among children.

“Recent studies indicate that 8-10-year-old children spend an average of six hours daily on screens, while preteens (ages 11–14) average about nine hours per day. In Pakistan, top 5 of the most popular Android apps are YouTube (42.90pc of time spent on the platform), WhatsApp (16.07pc), Instagram (8.97pc), TikTok (5.88pc), and Roblox (4.44pc),” it stated.

The report said that the popularity of AI tools surged during the said period, and one AI application managed to make it to the list of top 20 applications.

YouTube remains popular platform as WhatsApp overtakes TikTok

“In this year’s report, Kaspersky found a surge of interest in artificial intelligence tools. While no AI apps appeared in the top 20 most-used applications in 2023-2024 time period, ‘Character.AI’ has now entered the list, showing that children are not only curious about AI but are actively integrating it into their digital lives.

More than 7.5pc of all search queries were about AI chatbots, led by well-known names like ChatGPT, Gemini, and especially Character.AI — a platform that lets users create or interact with bots mimicking fictional or real characters. This marks a sharp rise from last year: in the 2023–2024 report, AI-related queries made up just 3.19pc of all searches, increasing more than twice this year,“ it stated.

According to the report, the most common online activity among kids was searching on Google for streaming platforms — almost 18pc of all queries were related to watching videos. Unsurprisingly, YouTube remains the clear favourite Android app, growing from 28.13pc to 29.77pc over the past year.

WhatsApp rose to second place with 14.72pc, overtaking TikTok (12.76pc), while Snapchat and Facebook continued to decline. This shift may reflect evolving communication habits — children are using chat apps more frequently to share links, memes and short videos with friends.

Video content and games also remained popular topics in children’s search behaviour. Platforms like Netflix, Twitch and Disney+ held strong — a trend that also echoed findings from a recent streaming report, which highlighted how entertainment platforms often become targets for cybercriminals.

At the same time, in the gaming world, kids continued to favour Roblox, Minecraft and increasingly, the browser-based portal Poki — a portal offering hundreds of free games, often simple, fast-paced and instantly accessible in a browser.

“This year’s trends show just how fast kids’ digital culture is evolving… But behind every trend is a chance for connection. When parents take time to understand what their children are watching, playing or searching for, it opens the door to meaningful conversations — and helps build safer, more trusting digital habits. Apps for digital parenting can be a helpful tool in this journey — not only to protect, but to stay involved,” said Anna Larkina, privacy expert at Kaspersky.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2025