Meta is piloting an AI-powered storytelling app called StoryKit, which generates personalised children's bedtime stories, including custom characters, settings, moral lessons and music, without parents needing to write anything themselves. The app, spotted in the App Store by 9to5Mac and confirmed by Meta to TechCrunch, is being tested in select countries to gauge parental reception, raising fresh questions about how far AI tools are being pushed into intimate family routines traditionally built on human imagination and connection.

Users create a character by photographing a favourite toy or person, then describe a setting and choose a value, such as kindness or courage, for the AI to weave into the plot. Meta says the app uses AI safety filters, has no social features, and is restricted to users aged 18 and over, positioning it as a tool for parents rather than children directly. The piece is written from a critical perspective, arguing that outsourcing bedtime storytelling to AI risks displacing a long human tradition of oral and improvised storytelling.