Notes
Working notes.
What comes up while building a voice companion for three to five year olds. Written as it happens, with the sources attached.
15 September 2026 · 2 min
A four-year-old does not finish sentences
Preschool speech breaks the assumptions voice systems are built on. Higher formants, half the consonants missing, and pauses landing in the middle of a phrase where the machine has been told to start talking.
12 September 2026 · 3 min
Why we started with voice and no screen
A three-year-old cannot read, which settled the shape of the product before anything else. What a voice-only companion gives up, and what Mattel learned the hard way in 2017.
12 September 2026 · 12 min
What the 2026 rules actually require before you ship a voice AI for children
What COPPA, the AI Act, the UK Children's Code, app stores and model vendors actually require of a product a young child speaks to. Read from the primary sources.