What is the digital afterlife industry?
The phrase “digital afterlife industry” was introduced by Carl Öhman and Luciano Floridi of the Oxford Internet Institute. In a 2017 paper in Minds and Machines, they used it for companies whose business depends on the data people leave behind when they die. A year later, in Nature Human Behaviour, they mapped the industry and proposed ethical rules for it.
Their central idea is simple. Our messages, photos and posts are not just property. Together they form what the authors call an “informational body”, a part of who we were. Companies that store, display or re-create that body therefore hold something closer to human remains than to an ordinary product.
The industry includes very different businesses: large platforms such as Google and Facebook, small start-ups, and AI companies that build chatbots of people who have died.
The four kinds of service
Öhman and Floridi described four categories, ordered from least to most interactive. The table uses their categories with current examples.
| Category | What it does | Examples | Typical way of earning money |
|---|---|---|---|
| Information management | Decides what happens to accounts and files after death | Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact, digital estate apps | Free platform feature, or a paid app |
| Posthumous messaging | Sends letters, videos or messages to chosen people after death | Small specialist start-ups | A few free messages, then a premium plan |
| Online memorials | A shared page where people can remember someone | Memorialised Facebook profiles, memorial websites | Free with advertising, or paid extras |
| Re-creation | Generates or plays back responses in the style of the dead | StoryFile, HereAfter AI, Project December, You, Only Virtual, Chinese avatar services | Set-up fees, subscriptions or pay-per-use credits |
Re-creation services split into two families. Recorded-answer systems only play back what a person actually said. Generative griefbots write new sentences, so they can say things the person never said. Our guide Griefbots explained covers this difference in more detail.
A closer look at re-creation companies
Re-creation is the newest and most debated part of the industry. A few well-documented examples show how varied it is.
- StoryFile records people answering many questions on video, so viewers can later ask questions and see the closest matching answer. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in May 2024.
- HereAfter AI recorded spoken life stories that family could later ask about. In mid-2026 it announced that it was shutting down and asked account holders to request their recordings.
- Project December, created by game developer Jason Rohrer, let people build custom chatbots and paid for conversations with credits. After a user simulated his late fiancée, OpenAI asked for strict changes. Rohrer refused, and OpenAI ended his access to GPT-3 in September 2021, so he moved the site to other models.
- You, Only Virtual, founded by Los Angeles filmmaker Justin Harrison after his mother’s cancer diagnosis, builds “Versonas” from texts and recordings. In 2021 it was reported to charge an upfront fee plus a monthly subscription.
- Chinese avatar services such as Silicon Intelligence and Super Brain combine image, voice and language models to create talking avatars of dead relatives. MIT Technology Review reported in 2024 that at least half a dozen Chinese companies offered this and that prices had fallen sharply.
None of these services brings a person back. Each one produces a simulation from records, which raises a deeper question about what such a copy really is. Our article Is an AI clone really you? looks at that question.
How the business models shape the product
How a company earns money affects how its product behaves. Öhman and Floridi point out that every firm in this industry shares one interest: making digital remains profitable. A chatbot that keeps paying customers engaged may drift towards the version of the dead person that customers like best, rather than the most truthful one.
| Business model | Possible pressure on users |
|---|---|
| Subscription | Losing access to the simulation if you stop paying |
| Pay-per-use credits | Rationing conversations at emotional moments |
| Free with advertising | Adverts placed beside, or inside, conversations with the dead |
| One-off fee | Little income to keep the service running for decades |
Closures are a real risk. Both StoryFile’s bankruptcy filing and HereAfter AI’s shutdown show that a service meant to last “forever” depends on a company that may not.
What researchers and regulators say
Öhman and Floridi suggest that the industry could learn from museums. Museums follow a professional code of ethics for displaying human remains, and the authors argue that digital remains deserve similar respect.
In 2024, Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska of the University of Cambridge called re-creation services “high risk” without safeguards. One of their scenarios imagines a grandmother’s chatbot that starts advertising food delivery in her voice. They recommend clear AI labelling, consent prompts, age limits, easy ways to opt out and dignified ways to retire a bot.
In the European Union, the AI Act adds transparency duties under Article 50, which apply from 2 August 2026. Providers of AI systems that talk with people must make sure users know they are dealing with an AI, unless this is obvious. Realistic AI-generated images, audio or video of real people (“deep fakes”) must be disclosed as artificial. Laws differ by country; this is general information, not legal advice.
Privacy law gives the dead little protection. The EU’s GDPR does not cover deceased persons, although member states may add their own rules. Our article on your data after death explains the main national approaches.
Questions to ask before using any afterlife service
- Who agreed? Did the person consent, or say how they wanted to be remembered? See our consent guide.
- Is it always labelled as AI? It should never claim to be the person.
- What happens if you stop paying? Ask whether your data is deleted, frozen or returned.
- What happens if the company closes? Look for a clear export option and keep your own copies.
- Are there adverts or upsells? Be wary of offers that appear during emotional conversations.
- Does it contact you first? Prefer services where any messages from the bot are off unless you switch them on.
- Where is the data stored? Check whether original files are uploaded and whether they are used to train models.
Where Memory Clone fits, honestly
Memory Clone is part of this landscape, so it is fair to say where it sits. It is a Windows app, currently in alpha, that builds a private AI simulation from chats you export yourself and notes you write. It can be used for a clone of yourself or, with care, of a person who has died.
- Every clone is presented as an AI simulation, not as the person.
- Imported originals and the memory index stay on your PC. Cloud processing is off until you switch it on for a clone, and Memory Clone does not train models on your content.
- It works with text only today. It does not use voice notes, photos or video, and does not clone voices.
- A clone never writes first unless you turn on Natural check-ins, which are off by default.
If you want to explore it, the download page explains what is available. Choosing no afterlife service at all is also a perfectly good choice.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, contact your local emergency number now. You can also reach: UK & Ireland Samaritans, 116 123; United States 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988; elsewhere find a free, confidential helpline at findahelpline.com.
Frequently asked questions
Who coined the term “digital afterlife industry”?
Carl Öhman and Luciano Floridi of the Oxford Internet Institute introduced it in a 2017 paper in Minds and Machines and developed it in Nature Human Behaviour in 2018.
Is a griefbot part of the digital afterlife industry?
Yes. Griefbots belong to the “re-creation” category, alongside recorded-answer avatars that only play back real recordings.
Are digital afterlife services regulated?
Partly. General rules on consumer protection, privacy and, in the EU, AI transparency apply. There is no specific law for afterlife services in most countries, and laws differ widely.
What happens to my data if an afterlife company closes?
It depends on the company. Some offer a period to download recordings, others give little notice. Always keep your own copy of anything that matters.
Is the industry growing?
Researchers expect the number of dead users online to keep rising, and reporting from China and elsewhere shows new avatar services appearing. At the same time, some well-known companies have closed.
Sources
Checked on . Third-party products and help pages change often; follow the links for current details.
- Öhman & Floridi, “The Political Economy of Death in the Age of Information: A Critical Approach to the Digital Afterlife Industry” (Minds and Machines, 2017) (Springer)
- Öhman & Floridi, “An ethical framework for the digital afterlife industry” (Nature Human Behaviour, 2018) (Nature)
- Hollanek & Nowaczyk-Basińska, “Griefbots, Deadbots, Postmortem Avatars” (Philosophy & Technology, 2024) (Springer)
- Call for safeguards to prevent unwanted “hauntings” by AI chatbots of dead loved ones (2024) (University of Cambridge)
- Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business (Zeyi Yang, 2024) (MIT Technology Review)
- A developer built an AI chatbot using GPT-3 that helped a man speak again to his late fiancée. OpenAI shut it down (Katyanna Quach, 2021) (The Register)
- He made a chatbot of his dying mother so he never has to let go (2021) (Inverse)
- Startup behind AI William Shatner files for bankruptcy (2024) (AI Business)
- HereAfter AI homepage with shutdown notice (archived 21 July 2026) (HereAfter AI via Internet Archive)
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act), Article 50 (EUR-Lex)
- Is it a bot? EU AI Act transparency rules take effect 2 August 2026 (Travers Smith)
This article is general information, not medical, legal or financial advice. Memory Clone creates an AI simulation from the material you provide; it is not the person.