Momfluencers Push AI as a Better ‘Coparent’ Than Men
▼ Summary
– A mother used ChatGPT to solve her toddler’s sleep problems after expert advice failed, finding that more stimulation before bed worked.
– She created and sold access to a custom GPT called Coparent after her TikTok video about using AI as a coparent went viral.
– A new type of momfluencer promotes using AI to reduce the invisible labor of motherhood, rather than making chores look aspirational.
– US data shows employed mothers spend an extra 13.5 hours per week on chores and 12.5 hours on childcare, reflecting a persistent gender gap in household labor.
– Women are over 20% less likely than men to use generative AI, a gap attributed to tools being “pale, male, and stale.”
Lilian Schmidt was at her wit’s end. No matter what she tried, her toddler daughter refused to fall asleep without a two-to-three-hour battle each night. Sleep experts, pediatricians, white noise machines, blackout curtains, and even massages all failed. “She’d scream and fight and we would all be so exhausted and frustrated by the end of the day,” recalls the Zurich-based brand consultant.
Desperate and sleep-deprived when her daughter was three and a half, Schmidt turned to an unconventional solution: ChatGPT. The AI’s advice contradicted everything she had heard before. It recommended more stimulation before bed, like chewing gum or jumping on a trampoline. To her astonishment, her daughter was asleep within five minutes. “I was freaking out,” Schmidt says. “Nobody was able to help me except ChatGPT.”
That breakthrough transformed Schmidt into an AI evangelist. In June 2025, she posted a TikTok video titled “I Turned ChatGPT into my coparent,” which went viral and grew her following to 27,000 in just three weeks. She then created her own custom GPT called Coparent, selling access for $37 on her website.
Schmidt represents a new wave of momfluencers who challenge traditional parenting aesthetics. Instead of glamorizing the drudgery of motherhood, they question whether that labor is necessary at all. Her content promotes AI as a tool to lighten the load, with videos like “The AI Assistant That’s Basically My Mom Brain Now” and prompts promising a “coparent who never forgets the sunscreen or asks you to write things down.”
Notably absent from Schmidt’s videos is her longtime partner. She handles nearly all parenting duties alone, from meal prep to arts and crafts. This mirrors a broader reality: according to a 2022 Department of Labor survey, employed mothers spend an extra 13.5 hours per week on chores and 12.5 hours on childcare, a 40 percent increase from 1975. While Pew data shows fathers have doubled their household contributions over the past 50 years, women still carry the majority of the burden.
“It’s not that my partner isn’t helping, because he is,” Schmidt explains. “But for women and moms, there is so much invisible labor that you carry and everything is in your hands, and it actually takes time with your kids away from you.” Her followers, she says, are drawn to AI because it helps them “be more present with my kids and to be more emotionally regulated, so I can be a cool mom and a happy mom and not a stressed-out one.”
This trend emerges amid a persistent AI gender gap. A 2025 study found women are more than 20 percent less likely than men to use generative AI in daily life. Stephanie Leblanc-Godfrey, founder of Mother AI and a self-described “maternal technologist,” attributes this to a “PMS” problem in the tech industry: tools that are “pale, male, and stale.” Momfluencers like Schmidt are working to close that gap by showing how AI can serve as a practical, empathetic coparent.
(Source: Wired)
