Girls say AI is a smarter tutor, a funnier comedian, and has better better taste than their parents, new Girl Scouts survey finds

Girl Scout cookies may still sell themselves, but when it comes to homework help, jokes, and emotional support, young girls are letting AI do the heavy lifting. A new survey from Girl Scouts of the USA finds that AI has quietly become a fixture in the lives of girls ages 5 to 13, and most parents don’t know how intertwined it is in their daily activities. Sixty-five percent of girls who use voice-activated assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Home say they view them as friends, according to the survey conducted by Wakefield Research in March 2026. Additionally, 62% think of AI companions or chatbots as friends. Among those girls, two-thirds have turned to AI for help when feeling sad, upset, anxious, or lonely. Nearly half of girls (47%) believe AI is better than their parents at helping with homework, and that number jumps to 57% among Black girls. Taste in pop culture is also seen as superior: half prefer AI over their parents for song, show, or movie recommendations, and nearly as many say AI is better at entertaining them when they’re bored (48%) or telling a funny joke (48%). Despite the ubiquitous use of AI, parents appear largely unaware of how embedded AI has become. While 51% of girls report using AI at least once a day, only 32% of parents believe their child does. Dads were slightly more accurate at 38%, compared with 28% of moms. “Many families have been using voice assistants and AI-powered features for so long that they may no longer register them as AI,” Bonnie Barczykowski, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, told Fortune. “Girls may also encounter AI without actively seeking it out: on school-issued devices, in apps, through search engines, and in recommendation systems.” She added: “In many cases, it is simply built into the tools and platforms they use every day.” It also applies to emotions. Forty-four percent of parents acknowledge it’s likely their child is at least occasionally asking AI chat