In the UK, too many young children don't get what they need to develop and thrive in the early years. Nesta’s fairer start mission is dedicated to narrowing this outcome gap between children growing up in disadvantage and their peers. Alongside finding ways to improve the home learning environment, helping local authorities to innovate with their services, and exploring the possibilities to support family incomes, we also want to consider the role of emerging technologies.

Could trends such as recent advances in artificial intelligence and growing venture funding for child-focussed products and services pave the way for novel, impactful innovations for supporting child development?

We addressed this question by using our data-driven methodology for analysing data related to research and development, to identify and assess imminent impactful innovations and technologies.

By identifying impactful areas of research and development, we can contribute to a vision for how emerging technologies could support child development in a more precise and timely way.

When it comes to early childhood development, the earlier an intervention takes place – whether that be for special educational needs, or facilitating improvements in the home environment – the better that child’s chances of excelling at school.

Existing methods of assessing child development are mostly low- or no-tech, which makes them accessible but also comes with certain limitations. Existing standardised developmental screening measures such as the Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-3), used in England and Scotland, rely on either professionals or parents completing assessment forms at specific points in time. Nesta’s ongoing research into the ASQ-3 has surfaced concerns in the academic community about its specificity and sensitivity, alongside practical challenges related to wide variation in completion methods and rates.

Our previous work on parenting tech has highlighted new technologies such as AI-powered speech recognition for young children (used in products such as EarlyBird to detect dyslexia). Our recent investments analysis found that special educational needs is one of the most rapidly growing areas of early years investment. Now, with this research, we have gained a bigger-picture view of the research and development landscape and identified where the sweet spots of innovation are and what early childhood development monitoring could look like in the future.

We explored extensive research, venture funding and patent datasets and employed natural language processing methods. We used machine learning approaches such as supervised learning and generative AI to categorise the various different technologies and innovations, and describe research trends around the different categories.

Our study points to a building wave of research, products, services and companies aimed at supporting the development of children aged 0-5, particularly with the use of digital technologies. Our analysis found that between 2019-2023, research funding awarded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) for early-years digital technologies increased by 166%, while global research publications on this topic rose by 78%.

However, despite encouraging signals and fast-paced innovation, this ecosystem will need firmer foundations in future. For example, there are likely to be limited resources in the early-years sector to trial these products. In addition, a lack of reliable evidence around efficacy and safety could give parents reason to mistrust new technology.

We also spoke with a small number of early-years experts and parents to complement the quantitative analysis. Both groups raised concerns about the evidence gap on the impact of digital technologies on children's development, underscoring the need for more systematic evaluation.

While some of the parents with whom we spoke see the potential benefits of AI, others are concerned that using AI might undermine their instincts, reduce their sense of control, and even exacerbate educational inequalities due to the potential costs of these products and services.

Digital innovations and AI in sectors such as health and defence have recently received considerable attention and are high on political agendas. But the infrastructure for deploying these technologies in early-years settings remains neglected. More needs to be done to help the early years sector to trial these technologies in a controlled and evidenced way and realise the potential of this wave of innovation. Initiatives like the UK Government’s AI Opportunities Unit also offer promising opportunities for policymakers to start exploring the social benefits these technologies could bring to underfunded areas like early years.