By Rob LoCascio, Founder & CEO of KID Company
I spent nearly three decades building LivePerson, pioneering chatbot technology that lets you interact with businesses online. I thought I understood technology’s impact on human connection.
Then my son Lorenzo turned two, and I realized I didn’t understand anything at all.
I’ll never forget walking into the living room and finding Lorenzo, then three years old, transfixed by his fourth consecutive hour of unboxing videos. His eyes had that glazed-over look I’d seen in adults scrolling social media. He wasn’t learning. He wasn’t creating. He was just consuming.
When I tried to turn it off, the meltdown was instant and severe. It wasn’t a normal protest—it was almost like withdrawal.
That’s when I started paying closer attention to what he was actually watching. The algorithm had taken him from educational videos to increasingly bizarre content. The platform wasn’t curating for child development; it was optimizing for engagement.
As someone who’s spent his career in tech, my first instinct was to find a better solution. I tried everything.
I bought the Toniebox—beautiful audio stories that Lorenzo loved for two weeks. Then we’d burned through our collection, and I was looking at $15-20 per story figure. The math didn’t work.
I tried locked-down tablets with educational apps. They were just consumption devices with restrictions.
Every evening, I faced the same impossible choice: give him screens I felt terrible about, or be “on” as an entertainer every single moment he was awake.
Bedtime stories became my personal hell. Not because I didn’t want to read to Lorenzo, but because after particularly grueling days, my brain simply couldn’t handle it.
One night, completely exhausted, I had a thought: What if AI could help us create stories together?
I started experimenting, using AI tools to generate simple stories with Lorenzo as the main character. His reaction was immediate and profound. “Make the dragon purple!” “I want to go to space!” “Can Mommy be in the story?”
That night, as Lorenzo drifted off excited about the story we’d created together, I realized: The problem wasn’t technology. It was how we were deploying it.
The moment I knew we’d built something truly different came six months into development. Lorenzo had created a story about “Super Lorenzo” who went on adventures with his family. Each night, we’d add a new chapter. After a week, we had an eight-chapter novel—created by a four-year-old who couldn’t read.
I had the AI format it and printed it as an actual book. His reaction was pure magic. He’d never been particularly interested in books before. Why would he be? He couldn’t read them, and they were about other people’s stories.
But this was HIS story.
He begged the AI characters on the device to read it to him. Then again. And again. We had YouTube Kids available in the same room. He ignored it completely, choosing instead to engage with this book he’d created.
My wife and I just looked at each other. Here he was, choosing a book over YouTube because the technology empowered him to create rather than just consume.
Building the KID Device taught me that the AI revolution doesn’t have to be something that happens TO our children. It can empower them—but only if we’re intentional about design, safety, and purpose.
Every feature exists because of a parenting pain point I experienced:
I priced KID at $299.99 with a $19.99 monthly subscription. I know that’s significant. But I also know what the alternative costs: giving up your devices, guilt about screens you don’t feel good about, developmental impact of consumption platforms, fights over screen time, and lost peace of mind.
When I add up what I spent on Tonies, parental control apps, and “educational” subscriptions, the KID Device is actually cheaper. More importantly, it’s the device I desperately wished existed when Lorenzo was two.
Lorenzo is four now. By the time he’s fourteen, AI will be as fundamental as smartphones are today. I can’t protect him from that future—and I don’t want to. But I can ensure his first decade with AI teaches him that technology is a tool for creation, not just consumption.
I built the KID Device because I needed it as a father. I’m offering it because I believe every child deserves technology that respects their potential rather than exploits their attention.
Not because I’m selling it—though I am—but because as both afounder who’s spent 28 years in tech and a father who’s spent four years learning what matters, I genuinely believe this is the future our children deserve.
