The Bots & The Bees: Teaching kids AI literacy

Parents feel ready for the online safety conversation. According to the new Norton Insights Report: Connected Kids, 86% of UK parents say they’re comfortable talking to their kids about online risks, and 51% have already taken steps to reduce AI-related risks specifically, whether that’s restricting apps, monitoring activity, or talking with their kids directly about AI.

But 40% of UK parents aren’t sure their child can tell AI-generated content from the real thing, and 30% are not confident their child even understands that AI tools can produce misleading information. That’s a gap worth closing. Kids and parents are talking, but the conversation needs an update for the AI era.

Why AI literacy is now a basic Cyber Safety skill

AI literacy used to be a nice-to-have, useful for spotting a deepfake, bad photo edit, or obviously fake viral post. A few numbers from the report show why it’s now a foundational Cyber Safety skill for kids:

• 71% of parents worry AI could be used to create fake images or conversations involving their child specifically, not just fake content in general.
• Among parents whose child has experienced cyberbullying, 16% say the perpetrator was an AI-generated account or bot.
• 24% of parents with a child who plays chat-enabled online games say their child has been encouraged to leave the game and continue the conversation elsewhere; a manipulation pattern that AI-generated chat can now run at scale.

“Children are encountering AI not just as a homework tool or a search assistant, but as something that can be weaponized against them,” said Leyla Bilge, Norton’s Global Head of Scam Research.

“A child receiving harassing messages has no reliable way to know whether there is a person behind them or an automated system, and that ambiguity changes the nature of the threat. A conflict with a classmate has context, but a harassing message from an account that may not be human at all doesn’t, and children don’t always have the framework to recognize that.”

Giving kids that framework, not just a warning, is what AI literacy means in practice.

Media literacy has often meant asking three questions: Who made this, why did they make it, and what do they want me to think or do? Those questions still apply in the AI era, but kids may need to ask them more often as convincing synthetic content becomes more common. Regular practice can help turn critical thinking into a habit rather than something children remember only after content raises suspicion.

How to help your child build AI literacy

You don’t need to understand how AI works to teach your kid to pause before they trust something. A few places to start:

• Ask “how do I know this is real?” out loud, together: Practice it on ordinary things: a video, a voice note, a deal that seems too good. The habit matters more than any single right answer.
• Point out the AI tells you already notice: Odd hands or text in an image, a voice that’s slightly too smooth, a message that pushes urgency before context. Narrate it out loud next time instead of scrolling past.
• Separate “is this AI?” from “is this a threat?”: Not everything AI-generated is dangerous, and not everything real is safe. The goal is a habit of checking before reacting, especially with anything urgent, upsetting, or asking for personal information.
• Treat bots and impersonation as a known category, not a scary exception: Kids should know some accounts and messages aren’t from real people, and that this is a normal part of being online now, not a rare threat to panic about.
• Keep it two-way: Kids are often the first to spot new AI tools and trends. Ask what they’ve seen instead of only telling them what to watch for. It keeps the conversation current and keeps them talking to you about it.

You don't need to rely on intuition alone

Norton 360, which includes AI-Powered Scam Detection, is built for this gap specifically, helping flag suspicious messages and interactions in real time. That way, the job of spotting every fake doesn’t rest entirely on your — or your child’s—judgment.

Methodology note

*The 2026 Connected Kids study was commissioned by Gen (the company behind Norton) and conducted online by Dynata across 12 markets from 22 May to 19 June 2026. It included 2,001 UK adults. Data is weighted by age, gender, and region to be nationally representative. Mentions of parents refer to parents of children under 18 years of age, accounting for 39% of adults surveyed across all markets. Data in this blog post refers to UK respondents only.