68In recent years, as artificial intelligence technology has gradually been implemented in the consumer sector, the global toy market has also been quietly undergoing transformation.
Parents' demands for toys are no longer limited to entertainment, but instead focus more on educational value and emotional companionship.AI toys, with their interactive intelligence and content adaptability, are rapidly becoming a new category in parent-child consumption.
According to fnfresearch data, the global market size of AI smart toys was estimated at $13.25 billion in 2023, and is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of about 15.97% from 2024 to 2032.
By 2032, the global market size of AI smart toys is expected to exceed $50.27 billion.
Image source:fnfresearch
It is in this market context that a brand from Shenzhen, China seized the opportunity, quickly entered the overseas market with AI toys as its entry point, and became an industry benchmark in this niche category.
This brand isthe AI toy brand Haivivi from Shenzhen, Guangdong.
It is reported that the brand's first AI toy, BubblePal, launched in July 2024, reached nearly 100,000 units shipped in just half a year after its launch.
As of August 2025, actual sales of BubblePal have exceeded 250,000 units. At a unit price of 700 yuan, its sales have surpassed 100 million yuan, making it a hot dark horse product in the AI toy niche track.
Image source:Haivivi
Starting from industry pain points, redefining toys with technology
It is understood that the establishment of the Haivivi brand was not accidental. Its founder, Mr. Li, has twenty years of experience in the consumer hardware industry, having participated in the development of Tmall Genie from scratch to 30 million units sold, and was also responsible for the R&D of AR/VR products incubated by iQIYI.
After starting his own business, his early education machine product once sold tens of thousands of units, but with the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, he began to look for new directions for development.
Through in-depth market observation, Mr. Li noticed a phenomenon: children have a strong demand for intelligent voice interaction, but toys on the market that can truly understand children's emotions and provide high-quality companionship are very scarce.
Based on these insights, Mr. Li decided to create a plush toy that acts as an AI Friend, and officially founded the Haivivi brand in 2021.
Image source:Haivivi
In 2023, the Haivivi brand received angel round investment from well-known institutions such as Professor Gao Bingqiang of HKUST, and moved from Beijing to Shenzhen to prepare for going overseas.
In 2024, the brand achieved a major breakthrough, officially launching the world's first dialog-interactive pendant AI toy BubblePal based on AIGC technology.
This product is different from traditional toys. It has multi-turn dialogue, emotion recognition, and personalized content generation capabilities, focusing on both children's intellectual growth and emotional companionship. Upon launch, it was warmly welcomed by the market, selling nearly 100,000 units in half a year, and over 250,000 units after one year, becoming a new favorite among overseas parent-child families.
In the same year, the brand also successfully received continuous investment from top institutions such as Sequoia Capital, Joy Capital, and Huashan Capital, laying a solid foundation for long-term development.
Entering2025, Haivivi continues to make efforts in product innovation and business cooperation. Its BubblePal product has not only obtained AI toy cooperation licenses from globally renowned IPs such as Ultraman, Peppa Pig, and Nai Long, but also integrated ByteDance's Doubao large model. With its technological strength and IP appeal, it has formed a differentiated advantage in this niche field and successfully established itself in the market.
Image source:Haivivi
Touching users with real-life scenarios, deploying social media channels
In today's social media era, if brands want to sell products to more consumers, relying solely on technological strength and IP appeal is not enough. They also need to leverage the power of social media to let more potential users know about the brand and purchase products.
For example, the Haivivi brand has carried out marketing and promotion on mainstream social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, allowing the product to be discovered and recognized by more potential users in need.
--TikTok:
On TikTok, the Haivivi brand chooses to cooperate with tech and parent-child influencers, showcasing the product through real-life scenarios.
Image source:TikTok
TikTok tech influencer @moela9581, who has 665,000 followers, collaborated with the Haivivi brand to shoot a promotional video for BubblePal, the dialog-interactive pendant AI toy.
Image source:TikTok
In the video, the influencer first unboxes and displays the product's appearance, thenasks questions to the AI toy, listens to stories, and even imitates character voices, naturally demonstrating the product's interactive capabilities.
The comments section of the video attracted many interested users to inquire:
"I'm really surprised, can we have a conversation with it?"
To this, the influencer replied:"Yes, that's right, you can talk to it about anything, and it will adapt to your age."
In addition, it sparked a lot of discussion:
"Usually, parents would do this (buy this AI companion toy for their children)."
"Children raised by artificial intelligence... this is something to look forward to."
Image source:TikTok
It can be seen that this kind of content, which does not deliberately highlight technical parameters but instead resonates through everyday usage scenarios, is more likely to attract potential users to watch and greatly helps further conversion.
--YouTube:
On YouTube, the Haivivi brand collaborates with professional tech bloggers to produce detailed unboxing reviews and feature explanation videos.
Tech blogger WoW Technology, who has 150,000 subscribers, is a Haivivi brand partner and shot an explanation and review video for the BubblePal AI toy.
So far, this video has reached 16,000 views.
In this video, blogger WoW Technology first does a detailed unboxing and shows the product's appearance 360°. Then, he connects to the internet to start using it, explains and demonstrates how to select different character voices and set educational content via the mobile app, and also tests the AI's response sensitivity and knowledge coverage.
Image source:YouTube
In the comments section below the video, many users said that this product is helpful and useful for children:
"It's great to see technology being used to create something that resonates with children on an emotional and social level. I believe it will become one of the must-have toys for children everywhere."
"My kids would definitely love this! A toy that's both fun and educational!"
"The AI feature is a cool twist on traditional toys. Definitely something my kids would love!"
"Such a cool concept, I love the idea of smart companion toys!"
Image source:YouTube
It can be seen that such more professional explanation and review content can help potential users deepen their understanding of product performance and greatly help them make the next purchase decision.
Building an independent site to create a brand's own base
In addition to attracting traffic through social media,the Haivivi brand has also built its own independent website. When potential users are attracted by the product's features, they can directly place orders on the independent site.
The design of Haivivi's independent site fits the preferences of its target users, is very childlike and fun, uses bright colors and cartoon visual elements, highlighting the combination of fun and technology to attract potential users to stay and watch.
Image source:Haivivi
On the homepage of the independent site,Haivivi brand has set up a product character feature section, displaying characters that children will like in a carousel format, and statingthat each character has a wonderful story background.
Each classic character in Bubblepalwillaccompany userswith familiarvoices and rich, immersive background stories.This directly conveys the brand's technical features and fun to potential users, greatly helping to enhance their favorability.
Image source:Haivivi
In addition, to dispel potential users' concerns about safety,Haivivi brand has set up a safety commitment section on its independent site, promising users that product safety and reliability are basic rights and the most important core value of the brand's service.
Ensuring the provision of safe and reliable products. This directly conveys the brand's safety and reliability to potential users, greatly helping to enhance consumers' confidence in purchasing.
Based on this, when expanding into overseas markets, everyone can also learn fromHaivivi brand's approach, simultaneously advancing social media marketing and independent site construction, so that the brand can more comprehensively reach its target user groups.
Image source:Haivivi
Implications for Chinese brands going overseas
Haivivi's practice shows that brands going overseas need to focus on real user scenarios to promote product innovation, carry out content dissemination based on platform characteristics, and establish sustainable user connections through independent sites.
Currently, the overseas market is still in dynamic development, with the needs of different regions and groups continuing to emerge, providing diversified entry points for Chinese brands.
If domestic companies can accurately capture demand and match it with clear product strategies and marketing approaches, it is believed that they will have the opportunity to gradually build their own market base overseas and win lasting recognition from overseas users!