Animaj defends use of AI to make children’s content as debate reaches ‘boiling point’
The founders of Animaj, the AI-assisted animation company that recently received US$1m from Google, have defended their use of the tech to make children’s content and urged other studios to do the same to combat “AI slop being made in unregulated content farms.”
Gregory Dray, the former YouTube exec who set up Paris- and London-based Animaj alongside Sixte de Vauplane in 2022, has said the debate around AI and children’s content has reached a “boiling point.”
At the Oscars over the weekend, while presenting the award for best animated short, actor Will Arnett received rapturous applause when he said: “Tonight we are celebrating people, not AI. Animation is more than a prompt; it’s an art form that needs to be protected.”
Meanwhile, YouTube, the biggest platform for kids media, is battling to reduce the spread of ‘AI slop’ on the platform.
Dray has subsequently moved to address the “confusion in the industry” and to clarify how Animaj is using the tech to set a “higher standard” in animation made using AI tools as he seeks to distance the company from those that are pumping out ‘AI slop.’
In a LinkedIn post, Dray has urged the children’s industry to use AI tools to speed up their production processes and help raise the standard of content aimed at children on YouTube.
Part of Animaj’s strategy has been acquiring established children’s IP such as Maya the Bee and Pocoyo and using AI tools to reboot them for distribution on YouTube.
Dray said: “The reality is that embracing AI in the media industry is inevitable. The content farms are already here; they have no regard for quality, child development, or brand safety. The only way to defeat ‘AI slop’ is for serious creators and established studios to adopt these tools themselves and set the highest possible standard for the industry.
“We are not using AI to build a content farm; we are using it to empower artists. We don’t use AI to generate content in a vacuum – we use it to strip away the technical, non-creative hurdles that traditionally consume 90% of production time. This allows our teams to focus entirely on the storytelling and artistry that make IPs like Pocoyo and Maya the Bee iconic.”
As part of the recent US$1m in investment Animaj recently received from Google’s AI Futures Fund, it will also have early access to Google’s most advanced generative AI models.
Dray added: “Our strategic alliance with Google is built on this specific vision: making high-quality animation production faster and more efficient without ever compromising the quality or safety that children deserve. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that the future of storytelling remains in the hands of the dreamers and the artists, using technology not to replace the human heart, but to give it a louder, clearer voice.”
Meanwhile, Animaj co-founder Sixte de Vauplane said: “There’s a real problem with AI slop. Low-effort slop flooding children’s feeds. No story. No craft. No accountability. That criticism is valid. I share it.
“But here’s what’s happening in the press right now: A headline says “AI kids’ content on YouTube is dangerous.” It gets clicks.
“Then every company that touches AI and kids gets thrown in the same bucket. No distinctions. No nuance. No follow-up questions. Content farms with zero creative oversight get treated the same as studios with real artists, premium IPs, and real editorial standards.
“Refusing AI will not stop the flood. It just means the people who care about quality aren’t in the room when the standards get set. The kids’ media industry doesn’t need more outrage. It needs more builders.”
