Yes, These Books Are Made with AI. No, They’re Not Slop.

I’m going to say the thing out loud so nobody has to wonder.

Enchantably uses AI. The illustrations are AI-generated. The story frameworks are built with AI tools. The platform runs on Google Cloud, Gemini, and a model with the improbable name of Nano Banana Pro. If that sentence makes you want to close this tab, I understand. I’d like to ask you to stay for a few more minutes.

Because I think the conversation about AI and quality has gotten stuck in a place that isn’t serving anyone — not the critics, not the creators, and definitely not the parents trying to figure out what’s worth their kid’s attention.

First, let’s talk about slop

“Slop” was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2025. It refers to AI-generated content that’s mass-produced, low-effort, and designed to grab attention without offering anything in return. You’ve seen it. We all have. The uncanny Facebook images with too many fingers. The SEO articles that say nothing in 2,000 words. The children’s videos on YouTube with misspelled words and horses hatching from eggs — a recent New York Times investigation found that roughly 40% of videos recommended to kids appear to be AI-generated filler.

Slop is real. Slop is a problem. And I take it personally, because the thing I’ve spent the last year building sits in the exact category that slop has poisoned: AI-generated children’s content.

So let me tell you what slop is, and then let me tell you what Enchantably is, and you can decide for yourself whether they’re the same thing.

Slop is what happens when nobody cares

The defining feature of slop isn’t that it’s made with AI. It’s that nobody looked at it. Nobody asked is this good? Nobody stayed up until midnight tweaking a story arc because the ending didn’t land. Nobody regenerated an illustration four times because the light in the child’s eyes wasn’t quite right. Nobody cared, because caring wasn’t the point. Volume was the point. Clicks were the point.

Enchantably is what happens when someone cares too much.

I have built over 400 books in the last year. I have read every story arc out loud — sometimes to my boys, sometimes to myself at my kitchen table. I have rewritten endings that were technically fine but not surprising enough. I have refined illustration prompts that made beautiful images but didn’t match the emotional beat of the scene. I have agonized over whether a plot twist would land for a four-year-old or sail over their head.

That’s not a process that scales to content farming. That’s a person with a vision and a very late bedtime.

Let’s talk about the third arm

Here’s where I’m going to be more honest than most founders would be.

Today, one of the illustrations came back with a third arm growing out of a kid’s torso. Just... a whole extra arm.

In another illustration, the kid has a lemur tail. Casually hanging out there like it belonged.

And then there’s this one, which I’m still not entirely sure how to describe.

I could pretend that doesn’t happen. I could curate a version of this story where the AI is flawless and every output is gallery-ready. But that’s not the truth, and I’d rather you trust me than be impressed by me.

The truth is: AI image generation is extraordinary and imperfect. In the same breath. Those two things are not in conflict — they’re the reality of a technology that is evolving in real time, right underneath the products being built on top of it.

Here’s what I can also tell you: I built Enchantably knowing this would happen. So the tools to fix it are in your hands. You — the parent, the grandparent, the person reading the story — can regenerate an illustration that isn’t quite right. You can rewrite a poem that sounds off-key. You’re not stuck with whatever the AI gives you on the first pass. You get to shape it until it feels like yours.

That third arm? The lemur tail? Quick feedback, one tap, regenerated, gone. The new image kept everything that made the original special — the warmth, the composition, the feeling — minus the bonus limb. The AI is strong enough now that the regeneration doesn’t mean starting from scratch. It means refining.

Will there be odd things in the illustrations? A shadow that falls wrong. A hand that looks slightly dreamy. A poem line that doesn’t quite scan. Yes, almost definitely, and probably a few times.

But you’ll have the ability to fix it in seconds. And I think there’s something meaningful about that — about not just receiving a finished product, but having a hand in making it right. It makes the book more yours. It puts you in the creative seat, even if you’ve never thought of yourself as a creative person.

And the things that don’t get caught? The small imperfections that slip through? I think that’s part of it, honestly. Not a flaw to hide, but a quality to hold lightly — the fingerprint of a technology finding its footing. The way a handmade ceramic is more interesting than a factory-perfect one. Not because imperfection is the goal, but because it’s evidence that something was made, not stamped out.

And honestly? If we wait for the technology to be perfect, the kids will be older, and the magic of the giggles over seeing a random tail will fade. Childhood doesn’t pause while we wait for the tools to catch up. The four-year-old who’d lose it laughing at a lemur tail today won’t be four forever. That window is the whole point.

What awe actually feels like

I want to tell you about the distance between where this started and where it is now, because I think people who haven’t been inside the evolution don’t fully grasp it.

When I started Enchantably a year ago, the image models were — let’s be generous — promising. The compositions were stiff. The faces were uncanny. The consistency between pages of the same story was a coin flip. I’d generate an illustration and think I can see what it’s trying to do, which is a kind way of saying it wasn’t there yet.

Today, I open Nano Banana 2 and I watch it generate an illustration of a child’s stuffed bear leading them through a moonlit forest, and the light filtering through the trees actually looks like light filtering through trees, and the bear has the slightly worn quality of a toy that’s been loved hard, and I sit at my desk and feel something close to awe.

Over 400 books. I’ve watched the evolution frame by frame. And I’m still not over it.

And now there’s Lyria 3 — Google’s AI music generation model — creating custom songs with real vocals, real structure, verses and choruses and bridges. The idea that a child could not only read a story they’re the hero of but hear a song that was made for their adventure — that’s not slop. That’s a door opening to a kind of personalization that didn’t exist a year ago. Custom, straight to you. Not mass-produced for everyone. Made for your kid.

The question that actually matters

The conversation about AI-generated content usually gets stuck on a binary: is it AI or isn’t it? As if the tool determines the value. As if a story typed on a typewriter is inherently better than one typed on a laptop. As if the method matters more than the intention.

I think the better question is: did someone care about this?

Did someone read it out loud and listen for where it dragged? Did someone look at the illustrations and ask if they’d make a child feel seen? Did someone build in a moment of surprise — an “aha!” that a kid wouldn’t see coming — because they believe children deserve to be delighted, not just occupied?

Did someone pour a year of late nights and hard choices and creative obsession into making this thing as good as they possibly could?

Because that’s the line. Not AI vs. human. Careful vs. careless. Made with intention vs. made with indifference.

This is not a finished thing

I want to be clear about something: Enchantably is not done. It’s not a polished product being handed down from on high. It’s a living, breathing thing that gets better every week — sometimes because the AI improves, sometimes because I improve, and sometimes because my 4-year-old gives me a look during a bedtime story that tells me exactly which page isn’t working.

I’m building in public. I’m building honestly. And I’m building with an uncomfortable amount of love for a thing that some people will look at and see only the letters A and I.

I get it. The skepticism is earned. The internet is drowning in content that nobody asked for and nobody checked. If you’ve been burned by slop, your guard is up, and it should be.

All I’m asking is that you look at the books. Read one. Watch your kid’s face when their name shows up on the page and their bear is right there next to them, walking into an adventure that was built — carefully, imperfectly, obsessively — just for them.

And then tell me that’s slop.