Kaspersky Reveals Portuguese Children's Rising Interest in AI
Kaspersky's annual Kids Report 2026, covered by Portuguese outlet TugaTech, found that AI chatbots have surged into children's top digital interests, with ChatGPT now ranking in Portugal's national top 20 most-used apps. Per TugaTech, anonymized usage data collected between May 2025 and April 2026 show YouTube still leading with 30.6% of recorded activity, alongside TikTok, Roblox, Instagram, and WhatsApp, while children's searches for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and Microsoft Copilot rose sharply. Kaspersky's global report separately found AI tools captured 41.36% of children's "apps and tools" search queries. Kaspersky's Anna Larkina says children adopt these tools faster than adults, urging closer parental guidance.
Kaspersky's newest child-usage telemetry turns a two-year anecdotal trend, children embracing chatbots nearly as fast as adults, into a measurable, cross-market data point: AI tools are displacing part of streaming video's dominance in what children search for online, a signal edtech, parental-control, and child-safety product teams should treat as a leading indicator rather than a lagging one.
What happened
Kaspersky released its annual Kids Report 2026, a global study of children's digital interests. TugaTech reports that in Portugal specifically, anonymized usage data collected between May 2025 and April 2026 show YouTube still leads with 30.6% of recorded activity, followed by TikTok, Roblox, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Within that mix, Kaspersky says searches for AI services, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and Microsoft Copilot, rose sharply enough that ChatGPT now sits in Portugal's national top 20 most-used applications among children. Kaspersky's global report separately found AI tools captured 41.36% of all "apps and tools" category search queries among children worldwide, the single largest search-query category Kaspersky tracked, with chatgpt, gemini, deepseek, claude, copilot, grok, and character.ai topping the list in that order.
Industry context
This shift mirrors what edtech and parental-control vendors have reported anecdotally since 2024: generative chatbots moving from novelty to daily homework and communication tool for children faster than prior software categories reached comparable adoption. TugaTech also reports rising use of structured learning tools, Google Classroom, Duolingo, Scratch, and Python, alongside the AI chatbots, suggesting the AI-chat and coding/learning-tool trends are compounding rather than competing for children's attention.
For practitioners
For teams building education technology, parental-control software, or consumer AI products aimed at younger users, the practical implications are content filtering tuned to generative outputs rather than static blocklists, school-system integration paths such as single sign-on and LMS compatibility, and age-appropriate explainability of AI answers. Kaspersky's Anna Larkina, a web-content analysis specialist, said children adapt to new tools faster than adults and called for closer parental guidance given the pace of adoption, according to TugaTech.
What to watch
Watch for parental-control vendors and school districts to publish updated AI-specific policies, and for follow-up breakdowns by age bracket and device type, splits that determine which moderation and UX requirements actually apply.
Key Points
- 1Kaspersky's Portugal data show AI chatbots overtaking streaming video in what children search for, per TugaTech's report on the annual study.
- 2Kaspersky's global report separately found AI tools made up 41.36% of children's "apps and tools" search queries, the largest single category.
- 3For edtech and parental-control teams, the shift raises priorities around generative-content filtering, school-system integration, and age-appropriate AI explainability.
Scoring Rationale
A national-plus-global child-usage survey documents a clear, now-corroborated behavioral shift (AI tools are the top children's search category globally), with practical implications for edtech and child-safety product design, but it remains a survey finding rather than a structural or technical change.
Sources
Public references used for this report.
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