At OpenAI Family Day in Singapore, ChatAndBuild led young builders and families through a hands-on glimpse of the future: a world where software begins with conversation, and imagination can become games, websites, and AI helpers in minutes.

Singapore, 20 June 2026 - When OpenAI invited families to explore what it means to raise children in the age of AI, ChatAndBuild was asked to bring that future into the room.

At OpenAI Family Day, young builders sat down with an idea and left with something they had made themselves: arena games, zombie games, Avengers quizzes, 3D experiences, food-waste websites, and AI helpers shaped around the things they cared about.

The message was simple, and powerful: The next generation will not only use software. They will create it through conversation.

From AI as something to understand, to AI as something to build with

The session formed part of OpenAI Family Day, an event designed to help parents and children have more open, practical conversations about AI, safety, creativity, and the role technology will play in the lives of the next generation. Writing about the day, Grace Chua, Head of Communications, SEA at OpenAI, described it as “An open and practical conversation about raising children in the age of AI,” where the focus was as much on how parents show up, setting boundaries and staying curious together, as on the technology itself. Alongside discussions on parental controls, trusted contacts, and thoughtful approaches to safety, ChatAndBuild’s role was to make that conversation tangible: To show what it actually looks like when a child builds with AI.

A different kind of first build

Christel Buchanan, Founder and CEO of ChatAndBuild, opened the workshop with a simple invitation: Build your first AI helper. Each child was encouraged to start not with code, but with imagination, a problem they cared about, a character they loved, a superpower they wished existed, or a world they wanted to create.

For decades, building software has belonged mostly to people who knew how to code. ChatAndBuild is built around a different belief: if you can describe what you want to make, you should be able to begin making it. At OpenAI Family Day, that belief met its most honest audience, children. They did not need the category explained to them. They simply started building.

Each child received a custom “Build Your First AI Helper” booklet, designed to turn the creative process into something playful, structured, and memorable. The booklet guided them through focus cards, brainstorming prompts, naming exercises, sketches, superpowers, and take-home challenges. It was part prompt guide, part imagination map, and part keepsake, a way to help children understand that AI is not magic happening somewhere else. It is a tool they can question, direct, shape, and build with.

The goal was never to put a tool in front of children and expect the technology to do the magic. The goal was to show that AI becomes most powerful when it meets a person’s own curiosity, taste, and intent. For young builders, that meant turning play into a pathway for learning. For parents, it meant seeing AI not as something distant or abstract, but as something their children could question, direct, and create with.

The moment the room changed

Once the building began, the room quickly shifted. Hands went up. Ideas became more specific. Prompts got sharper. Children tested their creations, refined them, and tried again when something did not work the first time

Tobias Chua, eleven, created an arena game and explained that the process became easy once he understood how to give the AI more detail. Philip built a zombie game based on something he already loved. An Avengers fan created both an Avengers quiz and a 3D Avengers game in the same session. Across the room, another child turned concern about food waste into a website with a clear message and purpose.

These were not generic outputs. They were personal builds. The AI did not replace their imagination. It gave their imagination a surface to land on. A game became a way to express a fandom. A website became a way to care about a real-world issue. An AI helper became a character with a job to do.

That is the heart of ChatAndBuild: turning intent into creation, and making the act of building feel immediate, accessible, and alive.

The parent moment

The most meaningful part of the morning came when the children began showing their work to their parents. Parents leaned over laptops, listened to explanations, asked questions, and watched their children present not just what they had made, but how they had thought through it.

That was when the workshop became a glimpse of a new relationship between families and technology. Parents were not watching AI do something impressive on behalf of their children. They were watching their children make decisions, explain ideas, solve problems, and take ownership of something they had created.

In a world where AI is often discussed through the language of productivity, automation, and disruption, this was a more human version of the future: confidence, curiosity, agency, and creativity.

Why children are the clearest signal

There is a reason this workshop mattered. Children do not pretend a product is intuitive when it is not. They do not stay engaged because a feature sounds impressive. They keep building only when the experience feels clear, responsive, and connected to their own ideas.

By that measure, OpenAI Family Day offered a powerful signal. Young builders arrived for a family activity. They left having created working games, websites, and AI helpers, and, perhaps more importantly, with a new understanding of what technology can be. AI was not something abstract. It was not something reserved for adults, engineers, or companies. It was something they could use to make an idea real.

“Geniuses, my goodness. I would have never figured out all of this with my own imagination. Some of the things that were built today, like turning food waste into a website, creating 3D game arenas? These are incredible things.”

What parents and partners saw

The clearest measure of the morning came not from ChatAndBuild, but from the parents and partners in the room.

Grace Chua, Head of Communications, SEA at OpenAI, reflected afterward on how meaningful it was to see the children excitedly showing their parents what they had built during the session, noting how many creative ideas emerged in just two hours.

That experience was echoed by parents who attended. In a LinkedIn post, Batsheva H. of Better Futures described how her eight-year-old daughter arrived unsure about any of it, and a few hours later walked out having built a game for her grandmother, a birthday site for her friend, and a nature conservation platform for her younger brother. As she put it, the tools “shortened the distance between imagination and expression.” She also captured a line from the parent discussion that stayed with her: The question was never whether a child will use AI, but whether you know your child, because a curious child uses it curiously, and a creative child creatively.

Maggie Dumra, another parent who attended, shared a similar shift on Instagram. She went in curious and, in her words, came out having traded fear for understanding and confidence, having seen firsthand how children were interacting with AI and learning more about ChatAndBuild. Her takeaway reframed the technology as something families can explore together, from turning homework into games to sparking creativity and easing the mental load parents carry.

Taken together, these reactions point to something a recap alone cannot claim: the impact was felt and shared by the people in the room.

A category-defining collaboration

For ChatAndBuild, being invited to lead this session at OpenAI Family Day was a clear expression of where the category is heading. The next era of software will not begin with blank code editors. It will begin with conversation. People will describe what they want to build, and shape products, workflows, games, agents, interfaces, and living systems in natural language. The barrier between having an idea and making something real will continue to collapse.

What comes next

Even after the session ended, the room kept moving. Children wanted to keep exploring. Parents asked about future workshops. Families stayed in conversation with the ChatAndBuild team, having seen in real time how quickly a child could move from an idea to a working build when given the right structure, guidance, and creative tools.

That response points to the larger opportunity. AI does not have to feel intimidating. It can feel like an invitation. It can bring parents and children into the same creative process. It can make technology feel less like something to consume, and more like something to shape.

At OpenAI Family Day, ChatAndBuild helped make that future visible. And for the young builders in the room, it was only the beginning.

With thanks

ChatAndBuild extends its gratitude to OpenAI for the invitation to be part of Family Day, and to every child, parent, educator, facilitator, and team member who helped make the morning so memorable.

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OpenAI Family Day: How ChatAndBuild Helped Young Builders Create with AI