Building an app has plummeted in cost. Building for everyone everywhere has ballooned. k-ID launches Kai: age-adaptive design as fast as developers can build.

Kai keeps apps current for the rules that apply to children, teens and adults.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- k-ID today launched Kai, a self-serve SDK that makes any app age-adaptive. Every app has users of every age, but rules and regulations in a growing number of markets require that a child, a teenager and an adult receive different experiences. Most builders have no way to tell them apart, nor do they have the time and resources to invest. Kai changes all that in a super-streamlined integration that automatically deploys industry-leading age assurance, and then applies kID's age, consent and permission decisions for every user.

"Every app has users of every age, whether the people who built it planned for that or not. Making an app work properly for all of them has required recruiting specialists for months of work, so most apps simply treat everyone the same. Kai puts age-adaptive design within reach of anyone building, with one SDK, and keeps it true as the rules change," said Kieran Donovan, CEO, k-ID.

WHY NOW

Although the cost of developing an app has been steadily declining, shipping one app everywhere has become harder as the rules multiply, market by market. Three things have moved at once.

• Who is using the product. Userbases are growing with more younger users accessing apps, spread across more markets, and tapping into more of what an app can do. The only thing most builders know about them is a self-declared age, and in a growing number of markets that is no longer acceptable. Kai brings in age assurance at the point a feature needs it.
  
  
• How products get built. A small team can take an idea to a working app in hours, but cannot buy the specialist knowledge that makes it work for every age in every market, and should be building a product, not compliance infrastructure. A large company has that knowledge and still builds, reviews, takes the comments and rebuilds, because the answer arrives after the code. Kai puts the answer in the same cycle as the code, inside the coding agents builders already use.
  
  
• What the rules ask for. The obligation does not stop at the sign-up screen. It covers how the app behaves for each user, feature by feature and market by market. That is age-adaptive design. Kai applies it.

WHAT A BUILDER CAN DO ON DAY ONE

A builder signs up with no sales call and no credit card. They simply register, explain who the app is for, what it does, and add the SDK. Kai turns that into the permissions for each age.

The same build then behaves differently for different users. Chat might need a parent's approval for a twelve-year-old, be open to an adult, and behave differently again for two users of the same age in different markets, without the builder writing separate rules for each one. Any combination can be checked in Test before going live.

Kai applies k-ID's age, consent and permission decisions and shows what it applied. Certification, legal advice and the product itself stay with the builder, along with their privacy policy and terms.

KAI KEEPS UP WITHOUT NEW CODE

Constantly updating an app to account for changes in the law is daunting for any team. k-ID updates the rules behind Kai once it has tested them, and apps get those updates automatically with no new code and nothing for the builder to do.

LAUNCH PARTNERS

Age-adaptive design requires ecosystem participation and support to truly deliver a safer, more age-appropriate internet for everyone. k-ID is proud to partner with AWS, Checkstep, Deloitte, FastSpring, GGWP, Helpshift, Inworld, Modulate, Persona, Privately, Tremau, Veratad and Yes2Games as we bring Kai to builders everywhere.

BUILD FOR EVERYONE

Last week at the Build for Everyone Hackathon, hosted by Google in San Francisco, 15 teams built on Kai across consumer AI, gaming, marketplaces and social and education. The results included apps that taught reading and language or financial literacy with different levels of complexity based on age, created age-adaptive trading card and e-commerce marketplaces or plugins where teens could shop but not complete purchases across the web without parent permission, and an age-adaptive game similar to Pokémon GO where adults were encouraged to make new connections in their local communities but kids played a scavenger hunt within the safety of their own homes. The work was judged by Brian Behlendorf, a founder of Apache and a board member of the Linux Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Jonathan Lai, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and co-founder of a16z Speedrun. They were joined by Michael Carney of Google's Venture Capital and Private Equity team. To see the age-adaptive creations from Build for Everyone, please visit www.k-id.com/products/kai 

Asked about why he was excited for the launch of Kai and the Build for Everyone Hackathon, veteran investor Jonathan Lai from Andreessen Horowitz responded, "Age-adaptive design will be a best practice for app development in the future. Just like how developers today design responsive apps optimized for both desktop and mobile use, developers going forward will design apps that are tailored with different user experiences based on age."

AVAILABILITY

Kai is available to every builder from today, for web, as a JavaScript and React SDK. Builders can sign up online and run a real result in Test immediately. There is no approval queue. Kai is free for the first 10,000 monthly users of each product, every month. Full information and pricing is at k-id.com/products/kai.

ABOUT K-ID

k-ID powers the age-adaptive internet. Its infrastructure lets digital services establish a user's age band and apply the right experiences, protections and compliance requirements in more than 200 markets, with privacy built in. Products include Kai, AgeKit+, the Compliance Development Kit,

AgeKeys and neimo. k-ID was founded in 2023, is headquartered in Singapore and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners. It was named one of TIME's Best Inventions in 2025. More information is available at k-id.com.

SOURCE k-ID