Parents are saving time – and potentially, money – by using AI tools to help with common household tasks.mihailomilovanovic/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Erin Bury is the co-founder and CEO of online estate planning platform Willful.co. She lives in rural Ontario with her husband and two young children.
As the Type A parent in my house, I’m often in charge of many tasks: packing lists for trips, planning holidays and gifts, maintaining our family calendar and meal planning, to name a few.
And even though it’s 2025, as the mom, I’m still the default contact for birthday party invites, daycare and school requests, as well as other logistics. While I have an extremely supportive spouse who is happy to check items off the list, it’s the making and holding of the list that I find exhausting – a sentiment I’ve heard from countless other parents.
Using artificial intelligence tools for work is common these days. As an entrepreneur and the owner of a software company, I use it daily for research, analysis and other such tasks. It occurred to me recently: Why can’t I rely on it to help manage my mental load as a parent too?
Parents like myself are increasingly using AI to help with their to-do lists and buy back their time. In fact, parents are among the most engaged users of AI, according to a survey from Menlo Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
Released in June, the report is based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. adults. It found that 79 per cent of parents with children under 18 have used AI, compared to 54 per cent of non-parents. In addition, 29 per cent of those parents reported using AI every day, nearly twice the rate of respondents without kids.
I have a master’s degree and by raising two teens, I’ve earned a PhD in Parenting
What are parents using AI for? Examples from the survey included help with meal planning and ideas for packed school lunches, creating packing lists, assisting with math homework, generating practice tests and building a scavenger hunt for Easter.
For me, AI is a smart shopping companion. I’ve used chatbots to come up with easy, cost-effective weeknight meal ideas – the bane of my existence – using low-cost ingredients or things I already have at home. To save money during holiday season, I ask AI to suggest gift and decor ideas within specific budgets.
When my daughter outgrew her crib and needed a bed, I turned to ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview tool to compare various mattress brands in Canada, based on our desired specifications. Once we picked a brand, we used the same resources to make sure we were getting the best deal.
At Willful, the estate planning company I run with my husband, we’ve received an increasing number of clients who arrive at our website thanks to a ChatGPT recommendation for will-writing services in Canada. I even used ChatGPT to help identify tax credits I might be eligible for as a parent, to make sure I‘m not leaving any money on the table at tax time.
When asked how much time and money ChatGPT could save me as a Canadian parent, the chatbot estimated that by helping with travel planning, homework, household logistics and meal ideas, it could save me more than 170 hours a year and over $3,800. I have to admit I haven’t been keeping track, but if true, that’s a family vacation paid for by AI assistance.
Want to save money and entertain the kids? Take them to the local library
For parents looking to explore what AI tools can do for them, be aware that there can be challenges involved. AI can hallucinate, providing information that is either inaccurate or completely made up, so be careful if you’re using it as your child’s homework coach or your tax adviser. Personally, I double-checked the tax information I received from ChatGPT with my accountant – I still trust the human experts.
AI is also associated with negative environmental impacts because of an increased reliance on data centres, which use massive amounts of water to cool servers. I try to only query ChatGPT when I need help with analysis or research. For example: “My daughter is starting kindergarten in the fall, tell me what I need to buy and how to get the best deals.” I avoid asking AI for information such as the temperature my toddler’s chicken needs to be cooked at.
As technology advances, I foresee AI becoming more embedded in our daily lives as parents. If chatbots can already save us time and money, the benefits are sure to increase when AI agents are able to book our trips, buy our school supplies, or place our grocery orders. While that future isn’t here yet, I, for one, am ready to hand over the mental load of being a parent to a robot.
