Tailored, expert parenting advice is one tap away. Is this the year it will reach parents who could benefit from it, but can’t afford to pay for it?

In August 2024, parenting expert Becky Kennedy (Dr Becky) launched the Good Inside app. As well as tailored daily tips, the app offers parents AI-generated advice on any situation they are faced with, from teething to tantrums. What’s more, the advice comes in the style and tone of Dr Becky, “the Millennial Parenting Whisperer” with over three million Instagram followers.

This app is an example of the next frontier in digital parenting support, giving stressed and anxious parents access to personalised, expert advice on demand, in a voice trusted by millions. But will 2025 be the year such tools reach those on lower incomes, who can’t afford to pay for the service?

Joining Dr Becky in the AI parenting app arena is renowned economist and parenting researcher Emily Oster. Her app, Dewey, draws on the data and research from her website ParentData to answer parents’ questions. Like Good Inside, Dewey benefits from the credibility bestowed by its creator’s voice.

Other UK-based parenting apps like Baby Buddy and Easy Peasy use trusted sources to provide tailored advice to parents. Tantrum AI even allows parents to record their child’s tantrums and provides instant recommendations for how to act. Think Shazam, but for hissy fits.

Parenting apps can help address common barriers that parents face in accessing trusted advice. These include stigma, being too busy to get in-person support, or not feeling like advice is relevant. Now that 98% of parents in the UK with children under three have a smartphone and internet access with WiFi, the infrastructure is there for digital parenting support to be delivered in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

There is a risk that AI-driven parenting apps could widen the gap in early childhood development between poorer children and their peers. Previous research notes that uptake of pregnancy apps is lower among women with a lower income, or whose first language is not the same as the app language.

Having a virtual Dr Becky in your pocket comes at a cost of £265 per year, so some options are certainly not financially viable for all families. Other apps are free to use or have free versions, including EasyPeasy, Baby Buddy and Dewey, but without effective signposting, many parents will be unaware that these apps exist.

Given the sea of available parenting apps, all with different functionality and price points, the question becomes how parents can be directed to the best, most relevant digital tools in the first place. Those who can afford it may simply choose to pay for the trusted voice. Those who can’t may be overwhelmed by all the different options, and end up not using any.

To overcome these barriers, it’s essential that local early years services such as midwives, health visitors, toddler groups and children’s centres play a role in helping economically disadvantaged parents to access the highest quality digital tools available to them.

Nesta’s recent work has begun to explore the potential of different digital parenting support tools to help improve the outcomes of children from lower-income families. Our recent research featured caregivers from lower-income households testing an AI storytelling app called Tandem. We found that it has the potential to engage both parents and young children and help families establish early reading with preschool-aged children. We’re also exploring an alternative model in which bite-sized BBC videos are shared by text message so that parents receive a weekly prompt to access evidence-based advice tailored to their child’s age.

It is still unclear whether these apps will have measurable positive effects on children’s development. Research into existing parenting app solutions found that the developers rarely employ studies to understand their impact. Where digital parenting programmes have been tested in robust trials there have been some promising results. Digital parenting support is still a relatively nascent market, and it deserves much greater attention from UK researchers and policymakers as it has such strong potential to deliver high-quality advice directly to caregivers at very low cost.

These new AI-powered tools showcase the untapped potential of digital parenting support. Parents can now have their favourite guru on permanent standby, silently waiting for the next meltdown or bedtime battle. These technology-driven solutions will play a role in narrowing inequalities in 2025 rather than widening them, if we design them hand-in-hand with parents from lower income backgrounds, remove barriers of cost and enlist the help of local service providers to make sure parents know they are there.