- AI has already advanced to the point where it can be used to create games. Yet, everyone keeps saying that “AI will revolutionize the gaming industry.” Although, in my opinion, there is a much bigger — and far more predictable and lucrative theme!
- This is the use of AI to create simple applied games in the field of education for children and adults, employee hiring, team formation, and mental health. The beauty of it is that you don’t need super-advanced AI for this; what we have now is sufficient.
- This means that right now you can step in and stake your claim in such markets. If you engage in applied gaming projects that utilize AI, following the example of these startups:
Project Essence
Yeti Confident Kids has developed an application for educating children of preschool age from 3 to 8 years old.
The founders have focused on three main areas of education:
Arithmetic — numbers, counting, arithmetic operations, fractions, simple equations with one unknown. English language — letters, words, word parts, parts of speech, grammatical structures, skills in creating coherent text. Social and emotional skills — physical and mental health, hygiene, understanding others’ emotions and expressing one’s own, managing emotions, discipline and perseverance, teamwork, coping with changes and facing failures.
The first feature is that the application teaches all of this to its young users through simple games.
The second feature is that all these games are created “on the fly” by the platform’s AI engine, which thus adapts to each child and develops an individual learning trajectory for them.
The third feature is that the AI engine can play different roles depending on what the child needs at the moment. It can be not only a “teacher” but also a “librarian,” suggesting suitable content for the child, a “nanny” when the child needs to be engaged or supported, or a “pediatrician” when it’s necessary to check and improve the child’s physical or mental health.
The AI engine can explain new material and assess the child’s comprehension of what has been covered.
At the same time, it ensures that the child does not overstrain by offering moments of distraction to watch something light and entertaining when needed.
Moreover, it doesn’t forget to promptly and effectively reward the child for their achievements, issuing them achievements and badges. It’s very important that special rewards are given even for failures, which encourages the child to keep trying and striving, fostering perseverance in achieving goals.
The founders began delving into the topic in November 2022, and they released the finished application for public access a year later — in the fall of 2023.
Currently, the application has 15,000 active users who have collectively viewed over 160,000 minutes of gaming content created by the platform’s AI engine.
A subscription to the application costs $9.99 per month or $69.99 when paid upfront for the year.
What’s interesting
The role of games in educating and raising children cannot be overstated. Essentially, it’s the only way to convey something useful to a child because lectures and instructions at this age are simply not absorbed.
Once upon a time, parents and educators had to play with children themselves. However, the emergence of new media prompted educators to consider their use in the process of playful learning.
The first large-scale educational gaming project in what were then “new” media was the television show “Sesame Street” — sponsored by the US government to bring preschoolers from low-income families up to the level necessary to start school.
Nowadays, “new” media means the internet. 75% of parents use phones and tablets when communicating with their children, spending an average of 2 hours a day on this.
Approximately half of them have ready-made collections of videos, games, and songs from the internet, while the other half use search to find something suitable for the occasion. Only 3.4% of parents shield children aged 3–9 from the internet.
At the same time, 67% of moms, who usually take care of raising children, would like to “clone” themselves — so that this clone could read fairy tales to children, play with them, or help them with homework because they themselves get tired of doing it. As a result, they either continue to suffer or leave the child alone with a phone or tablet — hoping that they will learn something or be educated on their own with its help.
And at this moment, Yeti Confetti Kids can be very useful, as it can simultaneously act as a teacher, librarian, nanny, and pediatrician — meaning it’s more like a clone of a “caring mommy” than a regular cartoon on YouTube.
But is the caring mom ready to delegate care for the child in this way? The startup claims that the new generation of moms no longer wants to be “tiger moms” who tightly control their child’s upbringing and education — to mold them into what they want to see in the end.
The new generation of moms doesn’t want to be “tigers” — they want to be mentors who allow their children to play, create, think critically, experience emotions, and find their own path in life. And this means that sensible delegation of care is becoming possible.
I would like to remind you that the term “tiger mom” appeared after the publication of the cult book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” which described how Chinese mothers raise their children.
Where to Go
Actually, games are a versatile tool that can help not only in educating children.
A year ago, I wrote about the Skillprint startup, which made an app for adults where they can educate themselves — but also through games.
The founders of this startup claim that in this way, adults can develop their attention and creativity, the ability to concentrate and relax, logical thinking and planning skills, and many other useful qualities. They raised $3.5 million in the very first round for this.
The startup Equalture, which I wrote about at the beginning of last year, offers companies to use games in the interviewing and hiring process of new employees, as well as for building cohesive teams within companies. It raised $6.3 million in investments for this.
A separate interesting example is the startup Hero Journey Club, which I wrote about last summer. They created a service for improving mental health and emotional support. And its feature is that users participate in psychological sessions organized by the startup while playing games simultaneously — which enhances the effect of these sessions. In the very first round, it raised $14.62 million in investments for this.
AI has now developed to such an extent that it can be used to create games. Most startups want to use it to create “serious” big games with long and elaborate plots and skillfully drawn characters.
However, in my opinion, the biggest theme is the use of AI to create simple applied games that can be “applied” to the education of children and adults, improving mental health, developing useful skills, psychological testing, including hiring and team formation, and so on. Which can just become a direction of possible movement.
The beauty of it is that you don’t need super-advanced AI to create such games, the level that already exists is quite sufficient. And this means that you can start doing this right now — to be able to stake out your place in the chosen market.
In which applied topic can a gaming approach be effectively applied? To achieve what result? What kind of games can be useful for this? How should AI be trained to create such games? How to track the effectiveness of using games to achieve the desired result?
About the Company
Yeti Confetti Kids
Website: yeticonfettikids.com
Last round: $5.3M, 04.04.2024
Total investments: $5.3M, rounds: 1