Why yarn?

Yarn uses AI to help kids as young as 4 build and share open-ended storyworlds with friends and family. Kids can say anything they like to yarn, or even take a photo, and see their ideas brought to life in an unfolding conversation.

The resulting stories can then be shared with loved ones, along with children’s creative voice recordings. With real-time moderation and parent controls, yarn is a safe space where kids’ imagination can roam free.

Come join our community of early users, and take yarn for a spin!

Who are you?

Sally Davis and Federico Mor from Yarn

Federico Mor

Polymath, tinkerer, developer, dad

A data geek and literature nerd, Fed (‘Papa’) Mor was born in Geneva and raised in Italy before moving to London to study classics and comparative literature. After obtaining a graduate degree in public policy as well as an accountancy qualification, Fed worked in a mixture of data and policy roles across the UK public sector, including Parliament and regulators. He published several academic papers and pioneered innovative applications of AI and data science.

Sally Davies

Writer, editor, bookseller, mum

Sally (‘Mama’) Davies is an Australian-born journalist, editor and writer with expertise across cognitive science, philosophy and technology. She was on the founding team of Nautilus magazine in New York, has worked as a correspondent and editor at The Financial Times and Aeon magazine in London, and has consulted for startups and venture capital firms, including Index Ventures and Accel. Sally was also the founding director of the ‘Libreria’ bookshop in East London.

FAQs

  • See our ‘How To’ page here.

  • Yarn is currently in open beta and remains in development – which means we’re still figuring out how to make the product really shine. We currently have a web app that works in the browser, but are building a native app (and more).

    We’d love your thoughts about what’s working and what isn’t, so feel free to write to us at hello@yarn.family.

  • From our experience, children aged 4 and above get the most out of yarn, and can use it autonomously. Younger children can also enjoy yarn with the help of a caregiver.

  • Yarn uses AI to spin stories. When a child talks to yarn, what they say is incorporated into highly tailored instructions that we provide to a number of language and image models. In turn, these models generate parts of the story and accompanying pictures.

    Your child’s name is never shared with these models, nor is any information we hold about you. The models only receive a transcription of what your child said, and nothing else.

  • There are multiple safeguards to ensure that children are NOT at risk of being served content on yarn that is inappropriate, sexual, violent or distressing. The models we use have multiple in-built blocks that prevent such content being generated, and we've added our own real-time moderation. This means the text, images and voice recordings don't contain inappropriate material.

    Our extensive testing gives us confidence that yarn is safe for kids to use on their own. However, if anything gives you cause for concern, you can always report it in the app or send us an email at hello@yarn.family

  • Nothing, besides keeping it private and secure.

    We will never sell your personal data or use it to serve ads. The information and inputs associated with your account are used to create your stories and tailor your experience – nothing else, ever.

    You can read more in our privacy policy.

  • At the moment we aren’t charging for yarn because we're still playtesting, and we want as many people as possible to enjoy it. In the future, we will likely move towards an affordable subscription service. But we expect that part of yarn will always be available for free.

Have ideas or feedback?
We’d love to hear from you.