Momfluencers Promote AI as a Superior ‘Co-Parent’ Compared to Men

Lilian Schmidt struggled immensely to find a way to get her daughter to sleep.

Despite trying various suggestions from sleep specialists and her pediatrician—like using a white noise machine, purchasing blackout curtains, and even giving her a massage—none were successful. “Every single day, it would take two to three hours to get her to bed,” recalls the brand consultant from Zurich. “She’d scream and put up a fight, leaving us all exhausted and frustrated by the day’s end.”

When her daughter reached the age of three and a half, a weary and desperate Schmidt resorted to a controversial parenting solution: ChatGPT. The advice it provided “was entirely different from everything I’d previously heard,” she narrates. “It indicated that she needed more stimulation,” suggesting activities like chewing gum or bouncing on a trampoline before bedtime.

To Schmidt’s amazement, it worked. Within just five minutes, her daughter cuddled up beside her and drifted off to sleep. “I was freaking out,” she exclaims. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, no one else could help me except ChatGPT.’”

From that moment on, Schmidt, who has a 14-year-old stepson, transformed into an advocate for AI. In June 2025, she shared a TikTok video captioned, “I Turned ChatGPT into my coparent,” which rapidly gained traction. Her follower count skyrocketed to 27,000 in just three weeks. She even developed a custom GPT named Coparent and began offering access to it for $37 on her website.

Schmidt is part of a rising group of women defining a new kind of momfluencer—not the kind who presents an idealized version of motherhood but one who questions whether the labor is essential at all. They create content titled “The AI Assistant That’s Basically My Mom Brain Now” and “How to Use AI as a Mom,” promoting tailored prompts or guides for moms seeking a coparent who “never forgets the sunscreen or asks you to write things down,” as Schmidt notes in one TikTok caption.

Interestingly, her longtime partner is fairly absent in Schmidt’s content. In her videos, she manages most parenting tasks, such as meal preparation, grocery shopping, and children’s arts and crafts. This reflects a broader reality; mothers undertake a substantial majority of household physical and mental labor. A 2022 Department of Labor survey revealed that employed mothers spend an extra 13.5 hours weekly on chores and an average of 12.5 hours on childcare—a 40 percent increase since 1975.

That isn’t to say that fathers aren’t contributing at home. Pew data indicates that dads are now spending more than twice as long on household chores and caregiving compared to 50 years ago. However, women are still largely expected to bear most of the household responsibilities.

“It’s not that my partner isn’t helping because he does,” Schmidt comments. “But for women and moms, there’s so much invisible labor that you manage, and it actually takes time away from being with your kids.” Many moms flocked to her page when they noticed she was using AI “to actually be more present with my kids and to maintain emotional regulation, allowing me to be a cool, happy mom instead of a stressed one.”

Women are less likely (over 20 percent less likely, according to a 2025 study) to incorporate generative AI into their daily lives compared to men, a disparity known as the “AI gender gap.” Generative AI tools suffer from what Stephanie Leblanc-Godfrey, founder of Mother AI and self-identified “maternal technologist,” refers to as a “PMS” problem, meaning they are often “pale, male, and stale.”