8 working parents share how they use AI to give them more time with their kids

Business Insider interviewed eight working parents who use AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to manage family schedules, plan trips, and create custom tutors, freeing up time to spend with their children. Hope Denton, a 35-year-old mom of three in Indiana, brain-dumps into ChatGPT nightly to organize tasks, while Hally Peck, a chief marketing officer at Addition Wealth, uses AI agents to automate grocery orders and camp sign-ups. Christopher Domanski, a 41-year-old dad of two in California, built a ChatGPT voice tutor for his daughters.

Become an Insider /subscription and start reading now. Have an account? . AI is already a divisive topic when it comes to the future of work. The discourse heats up even more the closer you get to home. Last week week, Open AI CEO Sam Altman was torched https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-chatgpt-parenting-ai-criticism-2026-8 for suggesting that parents could use ChatGPT to "have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news" on a drive to school. Hundreds of X users fanned the flames with the same question: Why not just talk to your kids? While some parents worry about becoming overly reliant on AI, some see it as a powerful tool for managing packed schedules and overwhelming to-do lists. Some also find it helpful for troubleshooting their most specific parenting problems https://www.businessinsider.com/how-moms-use-ai-co-parent-kids-2025-11 , whether they're concerned about a missed milestone or want to improve their kids' grades. We asked eight parents how they use AI to balance work and family life, finding the technology frees them up to be more present for their children. Hope Denton 'brain dumps' into ChatGPT to balance family and work responsibilities Hope Denton https://www.businessinsider.com/author/hope-denton is a 35-year-old mom of three kids, ages 6, 13, and 15, in Indiana. She's also juggling a remote content writing job, her photography company, freelance writing, contract projects, and volunteer work. She told Business Insider that she balances all her tasks by brain-dumping into ChatGPT every night. "Instead of falling asleep, I'm mentally bouncing between work deadlines, appointments, practices, dinner, laundry, emails, and all the little things I am afraid I will forget by morning," she said. ChatGPT then helps her find the most efficient ways to tackle everything, while also noting what can be put off for now. Denton has also used ChatGPT to plan https://www.businessinsider.com/travel-chatgpt-use-case-plan-trips-saves-hours-2025-7 a week-long road trip through Arizona, including finding the best driving routes to avoid backtracking through the state. "For me, it is less about having ChatGPT do the work and more about giving my brain room to breathe," Denton said. "It helps me stop staring at the finish line long enough to take the first step." Hally Peck uses Perplexity and Claude to manage her family calendar and sign her kids up for camp Hally Peck https://www.businessinsider.com/working-mom-ai-agents-handle-groceries-camp-forms-school-calendars-2026-7 , a chief marketing officer at Addition Wealth in New York who is in her 30s, previously told Business Insider that while some AI prompts take time to set up, "automating some of these life tasks has given me more time on the weekends with my kids and has been a true win for me." She took 10 minutes to vibe-code an AI agent via Perplexity to order groceries every Sunday based on the brands her family likes, flagging anything out of stock. She also uses a Perplexity agent to automatically fill our forms and sign her kids up for activities like camp. She also programmed Claude to streamline everyone's schedules into one family Google calendar and note potential conflicts. She hopes to create more AI agents https://www.businessinsider.com/laid-off-founded-a-business-with-27-ai-agent-employees-2026-5 in the future. "It would be amazing to say everything is running 100% on AI, but you still need to put the work in to get it to the output you want," she said. Christopher Domanski created a ChatGPT voice tutor for his daughters Christopher Domanski is a 41-year-old working dad of two daughters, ages 6 and 8. Domanski, who works as a director of business management & development at a manufacturing facility in California, said it can be time-consuming to balance work with all other aspects of parenting. "That's where I've kind of embraced AI to save time," Domanski told Business Insider. When Domanski noticed that his daughters' progress reports had some gaps, he created custom, voice-activated ChatGPT tutors https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-integrated-ai-chatgpt-into-classroom-2025-7 to continually quiz them in spelling and math until they understood the subject material. Domanski also uses ChatGPT to digitize paper handouts from the school. Every week, he takes photos of flyers and permission slips and has ChatGPT extract the dates and action items before putting them into a Microsoft Outlook calendar. "For me, the value is not that AI replaces parenting or teaching," Domanski said. "It reduces the administrative and repetitive work so I can focus more attention on the parts that actually require a parent." Sara Sprong designs physical activity books and game boards using ChatGPT Like many parents, Sara Sprong, 40, uses AI to help with organizing her family schedule, meal-planning, and fine-tuning vacation itineraries https://www.businessinsider.com/used-chatgpt-plan-trip-my-partner-used-claude-2025-10 . But her favorite use of the platform is for hands-on projects for her three kids, ages 4, 8, and 9. Sprong, who works in customer success at a UX research technology company in Colorado, said she always has broad ideas for family activities. "The challenge isn't a lack of creativity," she told Business Insider. "It's finding the time and mental bandwidth to bring those ideas to life." On a big family trip up north to Wisconsin, she came up with custom Mad Libs tied to activities they were doing and a scavenger hunt around the resort. She asked ChatGPT to format everything into 8" x 11" sheets of paper so she could print them into physical books. To reduce her children's screen time https://www.businessinsider.com/how-i-got-10-year-old-daughter-off-of-screens-2026-4 , she also makes game boards of different household activities they can complete before they can use their iPads or watch TV. "It really helps me narrow down all the endless choices and be more intentional with my time," Sprong said. Cara Katz uses Claude to plan her week and order groceries Cara Katz https://www.businessinsider.com/mom-uses-ai-manage-household-parenting-2026-6 , a 36-year-old working mom, has been using AI for almost six years, including for help with parenting tasks. "Since I've started using it at home, I've saved myself at least 10 hours a week," Katz previously told Business Insider. "I'm tired of being judged for it." Katz, who works from home and takes her daughter to enrichment activities like music and library events, says she uses Claude to make a color-coded Google calendar to keep her family's schedules organized. Additionally, Katz uses Claude to keep an inventory of her pantry and has it connected to DoorDash https://www.businessinsider.com/how-ask-doordash-ai-grocery-ordering-tool-works-2026-6 and UberEats to order groceries. She also loves using Claude to predict when her daughter should hit different milestones, with suggested activities to help reach her goals. Katz said AI gives her more time with her daughter. " We are buying back time with our kids using AI," she said. "My mental workload has lightened." Ijeoma Nwaogu meal-preps and assigns chores using ChatGPT Prior to using AI, Ijeoma Nwaogu https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-parenting-meal-planning-family-schedule-mom-guilt-2023-5 felt overwhelmed with balancing work with parenting her three kids. "I was struggling to find some sense of harmony in managing my time, my energy level, my work schedule, and my kids' needs," Nwaogu previously told Business Insider. Nwaogu uses ChatGPT to design custom daily schedules for her kids, including finding family-bonding activities to do together in-between stretches of time. She also loves using it to create recipes based on what she has in the kitchen and what each family member likes. ChatGPT also comes up with age-appropriate chores https://www.businessinsider.com/kids-chore-list-allowance-money-skills-parenting-2026-5 for each of her kids, including options attuned to what her kids already like to do such as decluttering or organizing things by color . Nwaogu said ChatGPT helped her get rid of her "mom guilt." "I can now spend more time with my kids," she said. "I'm less stressed and feel like a better mom." Janine Clements loves her ChatGPT 'coach' Janine Clements https://www.businessinsider.com/mom-uses-chatgpt-as-parenting-coach-virtual-assistant-meal-planner-2025-10 , a full-time working mom of two teen daughters, uses ChatGPT to tackle more nuanced issues in the home, such as reconnecting with her 14-year-old daughter when she was spending a lot of time in her room or introducing a phone-free zone. She also likes using it for recipe ideas that adhere to everyone's preferences and find teen-bonding activities like volunteering at an animal shelter together. "It's way more intuitive than Google because you can refine your prompts as you go along," Clements previously told Business Insider. For example, she said ChatGPT gave her family more unique spots to visit in London https://www.businessinsider.com/bucket-list-trip-london-tourist-activities-2024-12 . "Although I know ChatGPT, or any other AI platform, shouldn't replace a parent's own judgment, it's lightened my load, helped me handle parenting headaches, and made everyday life just that little bit easier," Clements said. Katrina Beebe uses Claude to track her daughter's milestones Katrina Beebe, a 29-year-old mom who works in supply chain logistics in Illinois, uses Claude to balance her full-time work responsibilities with raising her 18-month-old daughter. When she first returned to work after her maternity leave https://www.businessinsider.com/i-took-5-maternity-leaves-teacher-benefits-policies-ohio-2026-6 , Beebe had her parents and a few family members watch her daughter before transitioning her to daycare. To make things easier for everyone, Beebe initially tracked her daughter's schedule and had Claude create a custom schedule based on the average times her daughter napped or fed. "As a parent, you have limited time," Beebe told Business Insider. "You don't really think about what you're doing in the moment necessarily and those patterns over time." She also programmed an AI agent, trained on specific information about her daughter, to track her progress in different milestones https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrate-teenage-sons-smaller-wins-achievements-2026-7 . If she's not hitting them, Beebe asks for advice on how she can help, whether it's by expanding her daughter's vocabulary or dealing with picky eating. She said she uses AI about 2 to 3 times a day, including for other household questions around interior design and landscaping. Beebe said AI helps her continue to perform at the levels she wants when she's spread thin. "Because I have probably the least amount of time that I've ever had in my 29 years, I still want to get the same amount of workload done in my work life and in my personal life," she said.