Nickelodeon
The Ask
Every kids’ app is smart, optimized, extractive. Nickelodeon wanted the opposite: a friend, not an algorithm, safe for every single kid.
Unconventional Wisdom
“We’re not AI for kids. We’re artificially unintelligent.”
The strategic turn that unlocked the program
Made
- Nibo A robot friend, not an algorithm: a character kids create with, not scroll past.
- BlabberMouth The kid-safe app built on artificial unintelligence.
- The guardrails Recommendation, data, and engagement mechanics deliberately constrained: what the system refuses to do.
- Kid co-creation Designed with children in the room, not personas in a deck.
Exceptional Outcomes
Engagement detail
Every kids’ app is smart, optimized, extractive. Nickelodeon wanted the opposite: a friend, not an algorithm, safe enough for every single kid. Makeable’s digital product engagement designed exactly that, an exercise in what the studio calls artificial unintelligence: deliberately constraining recommendation systems, data collection, and engagement mechanics to build technology worthy of children. This is ethical AI consulting in practice. Not a policy deck, but product decisions about what a system should refuse to do. The work combined kid-safe UX design, digital product strategy, and Makeable’s ethical-AI principles, and it anticipated the questions every children’s media company now faces.
Part of Makeable’s Digital & Product and AI consulting practices, New York.