AI Basics
Chatbot
A computer program that holds a text or voice conversation with a person. Modern chatbots use AI to generate each reply instead of reading from a fixed script.
- Parents
- Educators and school leaders
- Businesses
- Policymakers and staff
What parents should know
A chatbot is a program you talk to. Older ones followed a script. The ones kids meet now write a new reply each time, which means they can be helpful and they can be wrong. The design decides whether it stops after the task or tries to feel like a friend.
On this page
What is a chatbot?
A chatbot takes a message and sends a message back, in text or in voice. A scripted bot matches your words to a menu. A generative bot predicts a plausible reply from a model trained on large amounts of text. That second kind is what people mean when they say an AI chatbot.
The label does not tell you the job. An assistant chatbot helps with a question and can stop. A companion chatbot is built to keep the relationship going. A school chatbot may be limited to the assignment. Ask what it is for, what it remembers, and who can read the transcript.
Why a chatbot matters
Kids already treat the chat box as a person who is always free. A fluent reply feels like knowledge. It can still invent a fact, miss distress, or store the conversation. The parent question is not whether chatbots exist. It is whether this one has an adult on the account.
Voice makes the same bot feel closer. A spoken reply is still generated text. If you would not want the sentence in a transcript, do not treat the voice as a private friend who forgets.
How it shows up in practice
- A child asks a homework question and gets a paragraph that sounds sure and is missing a step.
- A teen opens the same bot every night because it always answers.
- A product page says friend, and the settings have no parent transcript.
- A school allows one bot for writing help and blocks the rest.
- A parent says out loud that the assistant is not a person and that the chats are readable.
How HeyOtto helps
Otto is a chatbot, and Otto is the assistant. A parent creates the HeyOtto account for ages 8–18. The child does not self-enroll. Parents can read the chats. Replies are meant to match the child's age, and topic limits are set per child. There are no ads, and the chats are not used to train models.
- Homework help teaches the step instead of dropping a finished answer in the chat.
- Voice is available. HeyOtto is not voice-first. Kids type and read first.
- Under 13, setup asks for verifiable parental consent.
For families
Try freeFAQs
Is every chatbot an AI companion?
No. A companion is designed for an ongoing personal relationship. An assistant is designed to help with a task and stop. The store listing and the memory settings tell you which one you opened. Otto is the assistant.
Can a chatbot be wrong?
Yes. Generative replies can state a false fact in a confident voice. That is an AI hallucination. Ask your child to check one source, or to show the step, before the answer goes on a worksheet.
Should my child use voice chat?
Only inside an account you can read. Spoken replies feel personal and are still generated. On HeyOtto, voice exists and the product is still type-and-read first. Say out loud that you can see the conversation.
What age is a kids' chatbot for?
HeyOtto is for ages 8–18, with a parent-created account. A general chatbot with a 13-plus label is a different product, often without a parent transcript. Read who owns the login before you decide.
Sources
Last reviewed September 26, 2026. This entry is reviewed twice a year.