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At Famly, we believe two things about Artificial Intelligence, generative AI, and how it relates to the early childhood software that we build every day.
Firstly, that generative AI is a technological shift that will allow us all to build tools in a way we haven’t been able to before. And second, that it is our absolute duty to use that technology only to build tools that actually, and deeply solve the problems that face you every day. That means you won’t see AI “fluff” from Famly.
We work for our customers, and anything we develop in this field has to be made with, and for our community. If it doesn’t directly solve your problems, or the problems of your team, it’s not worth building (more on this below).
That’s why we wanted to take five of your precious minutes to outwardly and concretely state the principles we hold ourselves to when building features with AI. We want you to know that building with this emerging technology is something that we don’t take lightly, and will not be cutting corners on.
With these principles, using AI at Famly will be much more Wall-E and a lot less Terminator. Here’s how we think about it:
Famly is nothing without its customers. And so whether we’re building with AI or not, we have to start with a real problem that profoundly impacts you. This started with our first application of AI - the Sidekick Writing Assistant, which was created to tackle what may seem like a small issue, but is a very real challenge for educators everywhere. That is, catching spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as checking tone, as they craft and send messages.
And it’s already been used more than a million times.
This just shows the value of working closely with our customers on the things that are going to change their lives - every single day - the most.
Many technology companies are happy waiting for others to innovate first, and then copying and improving those concepts once they’ve been battle tested. That’s not how we think about things at Famly. It’s important that we take the time and space to try out new things, so that the people who trust us to support the running of their institution get the very cutting-edge first.
That means we will try out new things, build tools that other software companies are not, and be confident that we can build the next big thing first.
But that doesn’t mean we will release a half-baked solution. So principle #2 is nothing without…
We understand that working with emerging technologies like AI can be very experimental. For example, we know that some generative AI still occasionally makes up untrue results, known as hallucinations. And so as we build tools with AI within our childcare software, we take our time.
We will always prototype with our customers, and even pedagogical experts - and test with them as we build. This way, we make sure that when we release more broadly everyone can confidently use the tool knowing it’s ready to go.
As generative AI improves, we believe it’s going to be able to crunch data, and provide insights on a scale that few other tools will be able to. But, as it is still emerging, we want to focus our tools on inspiring - not demanding - action. We need the deeply knowledgeable, trained, passionate and dedicated educators using Famly every day to remain a serious part of the approval process.
For example, we reinforce this with our Sidekick Writing Assistant, by providing the option to accept or reject AI’s changes. That means any AI work in the learning part of the app will inspire ideas, but also enable feedback, or to simply not accept the proposed changes. . It means in all areas of our platform we’ll focus on suggestions and not demands.
These kinds of tools are at their most powerful when used as an external ‘brainstorming’ friend. That’s how we generally see them best used today. Our customers are the superheroes - AI is just the sidekick.
We want it to be clear when you’re using AI in Famly, and when you’re not. You’ll see the familiar Famly’s Sidekick sparkles whenever using AI, and you have to agree up front to our data privacy agreement before we allow any integrated AI agent to process your data.
We hope that altogether, these principles offer you comfort that we’ll be building for the future carefully, with educators at the forefront - addressing their needs, and keeping them in their rightful place as the superheroes of early childhood development.
Guidance from the Danish Health Ministry, translated in full to English.
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The full recommendations from a working group of over 70 nursery chains in the UK.
Please note: here at Famly we love sharing creative activities for you to try with the children at your setting, but you know them best. Take the time to consider adaptions you might need to make so these activities are accessible and developmentally appropriate for the children you work with. Just as you ordinarily would, conduct risk assessments for your children and your setting before undertaking new activities, and ensure you and your staff are following your own health and safety guidelines.