Capybara-Inspired Emotional Learning Companion Recognized for Breakthrough Emotional AI Technology and Child-Centered Design

, /PRNewswire/ – Xueersi.com’s AI Buddy has been named a winner of the CES Picks Awards and Homecrux’s Best of CES at CES 2026, recognizing a major advancement in emotional AI that redefines how technology supports young learners.

AI Buddy is an intelligent educational companion toy for children ages 6-12 that combines emotional responsiveness with multisensory interaction through voice, touch, facial expressions, and motion. Using high-precision AI voice recognition, AI Buddy detects how children are feeling and mirrors those emotions through expressive faces on dual screens, creating interactions that feel real and connected.

"CES is crowded with AI-powered educational toys that trade the programmed responses of traditional playthings for real-time engagement. AI Buddy from Xueersi stands out because it’s built not just to react, but to understand," said Bharat Bhushan, one of the Homecrux Best of CES judges.

"This recognition from CES affirms what we’ve seen in our research: children need technology that connects with them emotionally, not just intellectually," said Xin Pan, General Manager of Xueersi STEM. "Young children need emotional support during independent learning, but most educational tools focus solely on content delivery. When technology can recognize and adapt to a child’s feelings, learning becomes both more effective and more comforting."

At the heart of AI Buddy is Xueersi.com’s proprietary multimodal emotion computing engine. Most toys just react. AI Buddy understands. Using advanced LLM-based emotion recognition, it reads the feelings behind words and mirrors those emotions through real-time facial animations. Internal testing by Xueersi.com shows the audio-semantic emotion perception technology maintains over 90% accuracy even when children shout or speak unclearly, creating "emotional mirroring" that makes digital interactions feel surprisingly human.

User research revealed something unexpected: children didn’t want a "smart" companion. They wanted a gentle one. Across test groups, children consistently shared more learning struggles with a capybara character than with robots or monkeys. Even more surprisingly, when the capybara acted curious and asked questions, children transformed into enthusiastic teachers, explaining concepts with patience and pride. The capybara’s approachable personality unlocked both emotional openness and academic confidence in ways other characters did not. Together with its emotional intelligence, AI Buddy delivers a complete learning experience through:

• Modular DIY design that kids assemble themselves, introducing engineering concepts and problem-solving skills
• Simple interaction through speech and touch only, with no complex controls, apps, or manuals
• Dual "expression windows" that increase children’s attention span by 60%
• Multi-sensory experience that keeps children engaged three times longer than traditional toys
• Food-grade silicone and eco-friendly ABS materials that pass rigorous safety testing

The CES recognition validates Xueersi.com’s vision that human-centered, responsible AI for children is the next frontier in children’s educational technology, deploying a true multimodal interaction matrix that synchronizes voice, facial expression, touch, and motion into one coordinated system.

About Xueersi.com

Xueersi.com provides holistic education for children aged 6–14. Founded in 2008, the platform has earned strong parental trust by serving tens of millions of families through research-driven teaching and AI-powered innovation, including its pioneering "live instruction + tutoring" dual-teacher model.

The platform’s competency-based framework offers courses across humanities, science, programming, reading, chess, and bilingual programs, balancing skill development with experiential learning to build future-ready capabilities rooted in cultural heritage.

"Xueersi.com – Big Science" delivers inquiry-based science education for ages 6–13 through hands-on experiments that ignite curiosity, develop scientific literacy, and strengthen problem-solving skills by blending AI with scientific thinking.

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Cecilia Qian [email protected]

SOURCE Xueersi.com