Can a Robot Really Be Your Study Buddy? (Elementary | Middle)

Imagine an AI tutor that changes color to teach colors, points to an arm to name body parts, and keeps lessons fun without losing focus. That’s Buddy AI, a 3D animated study buddy for kids that turns screen time into meaningful learning.

In this episode of AI for Kids, host Amber Ivey talks with Ivan Crewkov, the founder of Buddy AI, to explore how a personal challenge of helping his daughter learn English grew into a global learning platform used by over 60 million children.

You’ll learn how Buddy AI was built from the ground up with AI safety, child privacy, and strong educational design. Ivan shares how Buddy learned from 25,000 hours of kids’ voices and accents, creating an AI that truly understands how children speak. Unlike general chatbots, Buddy runs on a purpose-built model stack focused on educational outcomes, guided by a structured curriculum and gamified experiences that make learning playful yet productive.

We also talk about Buddy’s COPPA-certified privacy standards, including minimal data collection, deletion on request, and a privacy-by-design architecture that keeps conversations secure. Plus, a sneak peek at what’s next: a Tamagotchi-style home, customizable virtual pets, and new lessons designed with top mobile game creators.

Parents, teachers, and caregivers will walk away with practical tips on choosing safe AI apps for kids, understanding why embodiment matters in AI education, and how to treat AI as a tool, not a toy.

Listen now to hear how Buddy AI blends AI, education, and empathy to boost kids’ confidence, language skills, and curiosity.

Resourced mentioned:

• Buddy.ai
• Buddy’s YouTube channel
• Buddy.ai kidSAFE COPPA
• Talking Tom
• Tamagotchi 

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Ivan and Buddy AI
• 2:05 Mythbusting: What AI Can and Can’t Do
• 2:54 Origin Story: A Dad, A Daughter, English
• 4:35 Scaling to 60M and Global Reach
• 5:45 Teaching Kids’ Speech: Data and Accents
• 7:15 Why Buddy Beats Voice Assistants
• 8:35 Privacy by Design and COPPA
• 10:08 Safety, Purpose-Built AI, and Guardrails
• 12:09 The Future: Gamified Learning and Pets
• 13:49 Rapid Fire: Snacks, Space, and Robots
• 14:47 Final Advice for Kids and Parents

Transcript

Amber: 0:29

Hi everyone, welcome back to AI for kids. Today's guest built a robot tutor. I know, right? Yep, an actual animated AI that talks with kids. His name is Ivan Crewkov. And his creation, Buddy AI, is being used by millions of kids around the world. Ivan, welcome to the show.

Ivan: 0:48

Hi, Amber. Thank you for having me.

Amber: 0:51

I'm so excited to get into this. And I want to start with a warm-up question. If you could teach Buddy AI one new trick, like telling dad jokes or giving sports commentary or anything, what would you pick? I would say telekinesis, of course. What is telekinesis? You mean like to move things? Is that what I forgot what the like a Jedi powers?

Ivan: 1:14

You know?

Amber: 1:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jedi. So we're gonna have an AI Jedi at some point. Jet AI would be a good one. Jet AI. Exactly. Yes. I don't know if it's trademarks. You may want to check in on that. So, Ivan, before we get started, I like to have a little fun back and forth. And I want to bust some AI myths. Are you cool with a quick lightning round? Why not? Okay, let's go. So you have to say true or false to these. And feel free to give details if you want, but you don't have to. Is this true or false? AI always tells the truth. It's false, yeah.

Ivan: 1:47

Not always. It tries, though. It tries hard.

Amber: 1:51

It does try. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it true that AI has fillings?

Ivan: 1:56

No.

Amber: 1:56

No. Okay. And then last but not least, AI can make school easier.

Ivan: 2:04

Definitely. Okay. Easier and more fun, more effective, and improve your grades too.

Amber: 2:10

I love that. And students listening, I hope you're at home and I hope you were able to think about those things as well. Think about how many you got right or wrong and be honest. So, Ivan, I want to jump into your whole story of how you started this thing called Buddy AI. Rumor is that you started this because your daughter needed help with English. Is that true? If so, tell me a little bit more about this story.

Ivan: 2:33

Yeah, I'm an immigrant. I moved to the US 11 years ago with my previous startup. So we were building a smart speaker before Amazon announced Echo or Google built their home device. And I brought my family with me. A couple of years later, we sold this previous startup. And at the time, my daughter went to preschool and she struggled to start speaking English for about like four months, and so she really, you know, wanted to play with other kids, and uh it was a like a serious problem for her. We started taking lessons on platforms that connect teachers and uh students via video conferencing, and that's when I kind of realized that a lot of this work could be done by a talking AI character and uh to really like democratize it, make it available to hopefully every family. So, yeah, that's kind of how it how it happened. And uh, my older daughter Sophia, she became our first user, first tester. And even now, the vast majority of my teammates have children, and so basically all of us build buddy for for our kids.

Amber: 3:42

Did you all think you were gonna have millions of users on this technology when you were thinking of it and building it out?

Ivan: 3:48

Yeah, that was a part of the plan, of course.

Amber: 3:50

Oh, well, you're better than me!

Ivan: 3:54

Yeah, of course, it's been a dream, right? So we had this dream of giving every child an AI study buddy or like a personal tutor. Um, and I think even with this like 50 now over 60 million downloads, it's actually we're still barely, barely scratching the surface of this huge problem of global teacher shortage.

Amber: 4:16

Yeah, and quick question with those downloads, would you say it's a mix of US and international or mostly US? Where are those folks downloading from?

Ivan: 4:24

Mostly international. So today most of our users live in Latin America, but US is still like the largest single country. That's awesome.

Amber: 4:34

I have a quick question to ask you. I know the kids are wondering. Be honest, has Buddy ever corrected your grammar or how you speak to it?

Ivan: 4:42

Many times, yeah. I'm an English learner, English is my second language, so yeah, I learned a lot from Buddy.

Amber: 4:51

What is one of the most interesting things Buddy has said to you personally?

Ivan: 4:55

Hmm. Oh, he at some point told me about the origin of my name. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was interesting. Somehow I never heard anything like that. Yeah.

Amber: 5:05

That is super cool. Like one, for it to be aware enough and trained in a way that allows you to connect even on name, because name is often associated with language. So that's really interesting. So I want to talk about how buddy AI worked. How did you even teach a robot to understand kids' voices? I mean, I know me as a human, we were talking about this earlier. I talk fast, sometimes I mumble, I may talk too loudly, too quietly, or even make up words that are like slang or things that people that's different across uh cultures and communities. So, how did you teach an AI to understand kids and all the complexity that comes with them as they're learning?

Ivan: 5:43

So AI in many ways learn similar to how humans do. So by listening and practicing, so we made Buddy listen like 25,000 hours of children's speech. And so Buddy heard different children with different ages and with different accents pronounce certain words. So let's say you heard hundred or a thousand people saying hello, it would really help you to recognize this word, and this is kind of how we learned, and so we just keep collecting this like speech data and training buddy to understand language even better. And since we have users like all over the world, it also helps because we have children with different accents.

Amber: 6:29

That is so cool, especially considering the AI, like you said, took all this data. The kids have learned data and they know what that word means. We did like an ABCs of AI, and one of the words is D is for data, so they understand about the data, and that's awesome that you all were able to train that way. A lot of kids know like things like Siri and Alexa, and Alexa recently got like an upgrade, so she's even doing even more than she was before, or it, however, we want to call it. Why is Buddy better than a Siri or an Alexa or an okay Google?

Ivan: 7:01

So different AI assistants serve different purposes, and Buddy really shines as an AI tutor, AI study buddy, and he really shines in this role. So, for example, Buddy has a 3D body and he lives in a 3D world, right? So it's a 3D character, he has a like a 3D hole in his world, and he uses his body and the world around him to play and and to teach children. So, like, for example, as a thing with a body, it can explain this is an arm, this is an eye. Talking about colors, buddy would change color, say hat, and buddy would put on a hat, things like that. So, buddy is much more like embodied compared to just uh pure voice assistance or chatbot, and it's also much more gamified. And we have a strong team of top mobile game designers from like nice very famous game design studios working ensure that. One other thing is that everything that happens with Buddy is organized around a structured curriculum, and so it's not just spending hours just randomly talking to Chad GPT, playing or learning with Buddy, you have like a structured learning session, different kinds of exercises organized in a specific system to improve learning outcomes.

Amber: 8:21

That's really cool. Like to your point, Alexa, Siri, okay, Google don't have that. Like, I can go and probably say to it, especially with the newer Alexa, I can say, hey, what is this word for this? But it doesn't have the body, it doesn't have the integration, especially for kids. Like kids at home, I imagine you want to see something that looks more like a tutor versus like talking to a voice. And then I love what you said around having like if it's talking about colors, it changes. If it has a puts on a hat, it puts on a hat. Like being able to reinforce the learning by showing different items is super cool because of the voices that you've been able to share and a lot of kids interacting with it. I would love to hear anything cool or interesting that Buddy has shared or talked to kids about. Anything you've heard in the feedback?

Ivan: 9:03

So we thankfully don't know what kids are talking with Buddy about.

Amber: 9:09

Share more about that. Explain why that matters.

Ivan: 9:12

As a Copa certified product, we build Buddy as uh secure and then as safe as possible. So, for example, we don't know what Buddy's really talking with like a specific user about, so we don't listen what our users are talking about or don't read the scripts, stuff like that, and the data organized in a way that it's actually very hard to do. So we don't know, but in terms of like feedback, we have a lot of funny and cute comments from children using Buddy on Buddy's YouTube channel or in Buddy's like App Store page. I mean a lot of nice things, especially with young children. So they may say something like, Hey buddy, do you play Roblox? or hey buddy, it's Johnny. Thank you for playing with me yesterday.

Amber: 9:55

The Roblox thing hits home because my niece loves Roblox and it's too addicted. That's a conversation for another day. So some of the things you brought up make me think about like safety, and I know you're thinking about safety because you all are indeed um COPA certified. So when you say buddy is COPA certified, can you explain what it means without us needing a lawyer and staying away from any boring lawyer words?

Ivan: 10:22

Yeah, as you said, you already know what data is, right? So COPA certified means in general that we are very careful about like the information we collect from our users. Collect, process, and share. So in the context of AI, it means that we only collect voice recordings and speech data to improve buddy's AI, to train buddy, and we don't share it with anybody. So it always stays within the company, and when we don't need it, we destroy it. Let's say our users stop using Buddy. So it can just reach out to us and say, like, please delete all my data, something like that. The way we treat our users' data defines our compliance.

Amber: 11:04

That's very good. And for listeners, why that also matters is because when you are looking at any AI tech, particularly for kids, and kids, as we talk about, you should be doing things with parents' permission or guardians' permission and with your parents. But a lot of technology companies don't necessarily have to destroy your data or have these different protections that Buddy AI does. I was super excited when I found out they got COPA certified because these things help make sure, to your point, data is used in a way that only helps make it better, but you can ask them to destroy it, which is very rare. So thank you for talking through that. So, some of the things I also want to talk about is like, especially for students who are like in the classroom thinking about having Buddy as a tutor, I want you all to think about how you would feel about that at home. Would that be awesome, annoying? Kids are already doing this and things are changing a lot in the classroom. And I'm wondering how they're feeling about that. And I know you talked about how families are really excited, particularly kids, about just talking to Buddy about everyday things. But the thing I want to dig into is I'm sure parents and students are listening to it and folks are a little nervous. So let's get real a bit. A lot of parents do worry about AI apps, and there has been a lot of scary stories recently in the news related to kids and apps, particularly around chatbots, not necessarily around like teaching apps, but around chatbots for sure. How do you make sure outside of COPA that Buddy is safe for students and for those who are interacting with it?

Ivan: 12:34

Yeah, Amber. So, first of all, I think it's a very fair concern as a parent too. Yeah, right. I'm concerned about like when my daughter started talking to like a character AI thing, I was like super concerned. So I believe it is important for everybody, children, parents, and teachers. With kids, we have all of this like age ratings, yeah, because of a reason, right? So most of AI products and AI chatbots aren't made for children. I think it is very important to only use products that are specifically designed for children, and moreover, I would say use products that have like a very specific purpose. I would say very specific, like educational purpose, but it could also be like an art, for example. But see AI as a tool, not as a toy. So I think it's essential. And when you consider an AI tool, try to understand what's the purpose of this tool. If it's educational, it should have a curriculum. Well, if it's a design or art tool, how it works, what's the main purpose? And I would really recommend use only tools that were built with specific purpose, specifically for children. It may sound boring for kids or something like that. I'm sorry guys, but I think it's an important note. So, how do we ensure Buddy is safe? First of all, Buddy is not another chat GPQ wrapper. So basically, we build whole AI technology kind of in-house, and so we basically control everything.

Amber: 14:06

That's great.

Ivan: 14:06

We know how it's used and how data is used and things like that. And it is very important to note that our AI stack, it is like by design less versatile compared to, let's say, ChatGP. That's good, but it's much more focused, optimized on this specific learning and fun. So, this is what it does. And we don't expect children to discuss politics, nobody just don't know. He won't be able to talk about it, and that's fine. Oh, that's great. So instead of building guardrails around huge models, we just build a smaller, focused, and more optimized model, which is like safer by design because it doesn't have this extra content.

Amber: 14:47

That is really wise. And then Kate, I want to say something that you said earlier. Ivan mentioned a wrapper. So, what is happening is that a lot of people are taking chat GPTs, which y'all know about, or these different chat bots, and basically using those models and then either doing extra training or trying to make it fit for their purpose. I love what you're saying, Ivan, because you literally built something that can't do all those things for a good reason. And what we see with the rappers, the rappers have trouble holding the model in because they try to make the model fit to this new thing, but then things slip through the crack. Buddy, it can't slip through the cracks because Buddy was built in-house in Uls own AI. That is amazing. Kiss, I want you to think about even as Ivan's talking about this, should you ever give your address to a chatbot or should you ever give your personal information? I want you all to think about that and talk to your parents about it because as you're talking to these different tools or what have you, the way I hear Buddy's built, Buddy is not able to give you a lot of different information or what have you. But if you were talking to character AI or chatbot through any of these other tools, you want to make sure that you shouldn't give your address out. That's the right answer to that. And then, Ivan, if Buddy were to say something weird, let's just say something, some mistake happened and somehow something got in there. What should a kid do, or any chatbot, when it says something weird, what should a kid do?

Ivan: 16:12

Yeah, I would say that in case a chatbot says something weird, tell your parents and ask them to reach out to companies' support. Most probably I would say 99-99% was not like intentional, it's just some error bug or something. And like developers could really use this information to fix it for other users who may not call their parents and report this issue.

Amber: 16:38

That's a good point. And then if you're at school, teachers, same thing, you should definitely be talking to teachers.

Ivan: 16:43

Yeah.

Amber: 16:44

Is there anything else around safety that you want to make sure we address?

Ivan: 16:48

Teachers and parents, please make sure to check the age rating required and things like that to make sure the product is good for children.

Amber: 16:56

I'm glad you said that. Can you also tell us the age for Buddy AI?

Ivan: 17:00

Yeah, so I would say that our goal is to work with children from 4 to 12. So most of our users today are under nine.

Amber: 17:09

That makes total sense. My goal is also 4 to 12, so we're aligned. The other piece I want to say that you brought up, I'm glad you brought it back up, is that a lot of, and this is me making a comment. Folks know I don't try to take positions, even I do a newsletter, I send to parents uh alongside the podcast, and I try not to take a position, but I think the position you just stated on if a tool was created for adults, and then all of a sudden they have a model for kids, I would question that in a lot of different ways. And I know a lot of parents freaked out a bit when like ChatGPT is talking about that. Grok, Jim, and I created different tools. I think Google has like an education lens, which is very different to your point, like it should have a curriculum and things like that. But we should all consider when folks are putting tools in front of you kids and for parents and teachers in front of the kids that you're supporting. So thank you so much for that.

Ivan: 18:03

Happy that we are aligned on this topic.

Amber: 18:07

I agree 100%. And I know you have big dreams for Buddy, right? Where do you see Buddy in 10 years? Is it teaching in space? Is it running for class president? What is Buddy doing in this future world that we have no idea is gonna look like?

Ivan: 18:23

Yeah, I mean, every kid's learning buddy and uh maybe like a screen time guide, someone with whom you like pretty much spend your screen time together. I see buddy growing with children, so like from three to twelve, changing over time and teaching a wide variety of subjects. I think Roblox, but with more educational content, more personalized and with an AI guide.

Amber: 18:48

I like that you brought in gaming people to help with that because I think that's a piece that's often missing from education when it comes to like ed tech and those type of things. It's like you're competing with Roblox and you're competing with this world. So how can you ensure that a kid, if they're gonna be glued to a screen, at least they're glued to a screen where they're learning versus glued to a screen and then you don't know, like they're in this metaverse with a whole bunch of people not talking bad about Roblox. My niece loves it. Oh, yeah. But honestly, that's part of the concern is like, how do you make these, how do you compete for kids' time when they're glued to screens and make sure they're getting the education they need? And I love that y'all are bringing people from the industry to actually help you all do this.

Ivan: 19:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we have a huge update coming next month. So we will launch this whole like virtual pet, like Tamagotchi experience. So buddy will live in his customizable home with all kinds of rooms. You can dress him up, feed him, put him to bed, and things like that. Garden, zoo, things like that. So even more game design coming soon.

Amber: 19:57

So kids, I don't even know if they would know Tamagotchi, so I'm gonna explain it. So when we were young people, I'm assuming Ivan and I are somewhere in the same generation because you said Tamagotchi. Yeah. When we were kids, we used to have these things called gigapets or Tamagotchis. It's like a circle electronic game that you carried around. It was a virtual pet, and you had to feed it, you had to clean up after it, and you had to take care of it. And these things were like all the range when we were younger. So it's very interesting to bring a version of that onto a screen that even takes it to a different level because our version was like basically little digital dots that made an actual pet. We love that thing, and we tried to feed it and we didn't want it to have a bad outcome. And almost like some parents gave their kids these like virtual pets to make sure they could take care of a real one. So if you don't know what that is, I know your parents do, ask them to show you in a Google a Tamagotchi or Gigapet is pretty cool. You probably still get one on eBay.

Ivan: 20:57

Yeah, but you may play like talking tom games, for example, where you care of uh like a virtual cat thing. So, like yeah, we have a game designer from that studio designing this new experience uh at Buddy.

Amber: 21:11

That is so cool. So we're gonna jump through a few rapid fire questions and say your answers as quickly as possible. Kids at home, feel free to play and say your answers wherever you're listening to this. Are you ready?

Ivan: 21:23

Yeah, okay.

Amber: 21:25

What's your favorite snack?

Ivan: 21:27

Pistachos.

Amber: 21:29

Oh, I love pistachios, they're so good, and I love pistachio coffee.

Ivan: 21:33

Wow, I I never taken a note.

Amber: 21:35

A pistachio latte with almond milk. Oh my gosh, it brings joy to my day. What about your dream vacation spot?

Ivan: 21:45

Uh Jupiter.

Amber: 21:47

Ooh, why Jupiter? Sorry, it's supposed to be fast, but I want to know why. I mean, it's the rings and stuff, right? Yeah, pretty cool.

Ivan: 21:55

Should be probably one of the coolest looking locations in the solar system.

Amber: 22:00

That's so true. And when we get to space travel, hopefully we all get closer to it.

Ivan: 22:05

Yeah.

Amber: 22:05

Favorite robot from a movie.

Ivan: 22:07

I have this Optimus Prime Transformers right here.

Amber: 22:12

Ah, yes. Number one robot.

Ivan: 22:14

Big Transformers fan.

Amber: 22:16

Ivan is holding up his Optimus Prime. I love that. That's a really good one. Weirdest word you love.

Ivan: 22:23

Uh weird. The word weird still sounds weird to me as an English learner.

Amber: 22:29

That's a good point. How would you say it in your language?

Ivan: 22:32

There is no such word in my language.

Amber: 22:34

Interesting. Yeah. Okay. English is weird. And then last but not least, if you could build an AI just for fun, what would it do? And don't say buddy AI.

Ivan: 22:45

Probably be able to translate from a dog language. So I would be able to talk to my pup.

Amber: 22:53

I love that. I would love a translator for animals, dogs, cats, fill-in-the-blank, horses, elephants. The funny thing is, I thought I read somewhere that someone was starting to do that early on and trying to see if they could use AI in that way. So hopefully we see that in our in our lifetime. Because I imagine the next couple years it's gonna be crazy.

Ivan: 23:13

Yeah, Amber, by the way, Google showcased how their AI model is used to build like a translator for dolphins this year at the contracts.

Amber: 23:22

Oh, oh wow, okay. Yeah, that's pretty cool. If we're able to translate animals' voices, we're probably gonna have to all be vegan. I'm just saying, oh yeah. I can't, yeah. I'm like, I'm already almost on the edge. And I'm like, if I know you're like actually talking like that's I'm gonna be a vegan. Yeah, Ivan. What is one thing you want to make sure kids understand about AI?

Ivan: 23:48

Uh oh, so I would think that it is essential to remember, guys, that AI characters are not alive and they can't replace relationship with humans, with your friends and family. However, let's not be rude to them. Anyway, I love that.

Amber: 24:08

Anything else you want to make sure you share or tell us that's coming up for you?

Ivan: 24:13

Yeah, as I mentioned, we have a very cool, huge update coming in early November with a new super cool AI model and all of this virtual balls and whistles. Yeah, check it out. But not now, in November.

Amber: 24:28

Awesome. So we'll make sure to add links to Buddy's YouTube, Buddy's App Store, so you all can check that out with your parents. Ivan, I just want to thank you so much for taking time to come in and talk to us. And kids, remember, I love what you said, Ivan. AI is a tool, it's not a toy, it's also not a person. So always use it with an adult or with an adult's permission, depending on how old you are. And always stay curious. Ivan, thank you so much for the time. And we can't wait to see when Buddy AI hits a billion users.

Ivan: 24:59

Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me.

Amber: 25:02

Anytime. Bye bye. Bye bye.