How AI is changing the way we grieve our loved ones

Diego Felix Dos Santos never expected to hear his late father's voice again - until AI made it possible. "The tone of the voice is pretty perfect," he says. "It feels like, almost, he's here."

After the 39-year-old's father unexpectedly passed away last year, Dos Santos travelled to his native Brazil to be with family. It was only after returning to his home in Edinburgh, Scotland, that he says he realised "I had nothing to actually remind [me of] my dad." What he did have, though, was a voice note his father sent him from his hospital bed.

In July, Dos Santos took that voice note and, with the help of Eleven Labs - an artificial intelligence-powered voice generator platform founded in 2022 - paid a $22 monthly fee to upload the audio and create new messages in his father's voice, simulating conversations they never got to have.


"Hi son, how are you?" his father's voice rings out from the app, just as it would on their usual weekly calls.

"Kisses. I love you, bossy," the voice adds, using the nickname his father gave him when he was a boy. Although Dos Santos' religious family initially had reservations about him using AI to communicate with his father beyond the grave, he says they've since come around to his choice. Now, he and his wife, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, are considering creating AI voice clones of themselves too.

Dos Santos' experience reflects a growing trend where people are using AI not just to create digital likenesses, but to simulate the dead. As these technologies become more personal and widespread, experts warn about the ethical and emotional risks - from questions of consent and data protection to the commercial incentives driving their development.

The market for AI technologies designed to help people process loss, known as "grief tech," has grown exponentially in recent years. Ignited by US startups such as StoryFile (an AI-powered video tool that lets people record themselves for posthumous playback) and HereAfter AI (a voice-based app that creates interactive avatars of deceased loved ones), this tech markets itself as a means to cope with, and perhaps even forestall, grief.

Robert LoCascio founded Eternos, a Palo Alto-based startup that helps people create an AI digital twin, in 2024 after losing his father. Since then, more than 400 people have used the platform to create interactive AI avatars, LoCascio says, with subscriptions starting from $25 for a legacy account that allows a person's story to remain accessible to loved ones after their death.