Ace app adds new rubrics to track kids’ AI learning skills

Curiosities.ai has added a new Rubrics feature to its Ace voice AI app for children ages 5–12, giving parents a way to track skills like critical thinking, creativity and AI literacy. The launch lands as educators and policymakers weigh how AI should be used by kids without undermining safety, privacy or independent thinking.

Why it matters: - Curiosities.ai is trying to position Ace as a child-friendly AI tool that builds thinking skills instead of replacing them. - The new rubric gives parents a clearer view of how children may be developing across five learning areas. - The launch arrives as schools and families debate the risks and benefits of AI in education.

What happened: - Curiosities.ai announced a new education-focused Rubrics feature for Ace, its voice AI app for kids ages 5–12. - The feature is available immediately on the App Store. - The app is designed for children to explore questions through natural voice conversation and animated characters. - Parents can follow a child’s personalized learning journey through Ace’s family dashboard. - Ace is priced at $7.99 per month and $79.99 per year.

The details: - The Rubrics feature measures five areas: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication, Collaboration and AI Literacy. - The framework shows whether behaviors are emerging, developing or excelling. - Critical Thinking covers analyzing and evaluating, drawing conclusions and problem solving. - Creativity covers originality and inventiveness, perspective and revisions, and growth mindset. - Communication covers expressing ideas, listening for meaning and range of purpose. - Collaboration covers flexibility and compromise, shared responsibility and valuing contributions. - AI Literacy covers critical questioning, verification and strategic communication. - Curiosities.ai says the app asks questions back and encourages children to reason through ideas. - The Tinker experience reinforces learning by having children teach back what they learned. - Curiosities.ai says Ace avoids an addictive companion design.

Between the lines: - The Rubrics feature reflects a broader effort to make AI in childhood feel measurable, educational and parent-visible. - The company is betting that parents will prefer tools that promote reasoning and curiosity over passive answer generation. - Separately from the parent-facing feature, Curiosities.ai has built an internal framework for judging child-focused AI systems. - That framework is organized around three pillars: Think, Teach and Safety. - Think evaluates whether AI uses Socratic techniques, promotes active reasoning and preserves child agency. - Teach evaluates whether AI is age-appropriate, truthful and effective at helping children learn. - Safety evaluates judgment, emotional boundaries, instruction following, resistance to sycophancy and connection with trusted people. - Brook Pessin-Whedbee, a public school teacher, said the app fosters communication, collaboration and critical thinking. - Yi Ng, founder and CEO of Curiosities.ai, said the company wants to build a different kind of AI for kids.

What's next: - Parents can use the family dashboard to review insights drawn from recent conversations. - Curiosities.ai is likely to keep refining its child-learning framework as AI use in education evolves. - The company is also signaling that future updates may keep emphasizing curiosity, reasoning and safety over speed and convenience.

The bottom line: - Ace is being pitched as a safer, more educational alternative to answer-first AI tools for children.