[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Attempts are increasing to build children's software and hardware using generative AI. Existing services, however, tend to focus on text or voice. Sparkli, a startup founded by former Google employees, has stepped forward saying it will address this with an "interactive learning experience."

Attention is on whether it could be an example showing that AI has moved beyond a supplementary tool for coursework and into a stage of designing the learning environment itself.

Sparkli was founded in 2025 by Lax Pujari (락스 푸자리), Lucy Marchand (루시 마샹) and Min Kang (민 강). All three previously worked at Area 120, Google's internal startup organization.

A TechCrunch report said the founders' personal experiences led to Sparkli's creation.

Pujari and Kang, as parents, saw it as a problem that they could not sufficiently answer their children's questions. They tried explaining using ChatGPT or Gemini, but the long text-based results were not satisfactory. That led to the view that what children want is not an explanation but an experience.

Sparkli's goal is to provide a learning journey that children can explore directly, rather than photos or videos, for questions such as what Mars looks like.

The company said the Sparkli app supports creating learning paths by choosing preset topics or by having a child enter a question directly. It recommends one new topic each day to keep motivation up. Each topic consists of audio, video, images, quizzes and games. Without the pressure of having to get the right answer, a child can explore and understand the content.

Technically, Sparkli is characterized by having generative AI create all media assets in real time. When a user asks a question, it creates a learning experience within 2 minutes. The company is trying to shorten that time further. It says it differentiates itself from existing AI learning tools by automatically producing a package that combines voice, visual materials and game elements, rather than giving a simple chatbot answer.

The company emphasized that while general AI assistants focus on delivering knowledge, Sparkli designs the learning structure itself. It also does not limit topics to science or history. It spans modern concepts such as financial literacy, entrepreneurship and systems design.

On safety, a key element in children's AI services, Sparkli blocks sexual content entirely. For sensitive questions such as self-harm, it responds in a way that encourages understanding emotions and talking with parents, the company said.

Sparkli introduced game structures into learning, taking cues from Duolingo. It provides streak tracking, a rewards system and avatar-based quest cards. It also built a module for teachers. Teachers can check student progress and assign homework. It has run pilot operations at 20 schools and is also working with an educational institution with a student network of more than 100,000. Teachers can use the exploratory content at the start of class, expand it into discussion-based lessons and also use it as a homework tool.

Sparkli raised $5 million at the pre-seed stage. It plans to maintain a school-focused strategy for the next few months and to release a consumer app in mid-2026.