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When Michael Bommer found out that he was terminally ill with colon cancer, he spent a lot of time with his wife, Anett, talking about what would happen after his death. 

She told him one of the things she’d miss most is being able to ask him questions whenever she wants because he is so well-read and always shares his wisdom, Bommer recalled during a recent interview with The Associated Press at his home in a leafy Berlin suburb. 

That conversation sparked an idea for Bommer: Recreate his voice using artificial intelligence to survive him after he dies. 

The 61-year-old startup entrepreneur teamed up with his friend in the U.S., Robert LoCascio, CEO of the AI-powered legacy platform Eternos. Within two months, they built “a comprehensive, interactive AI version” of Bommer — the company’s first such client. 

Download one’s wisdom for posterity 

Eternos, which got its name from the Italian and Latin word for “eternal,” said its technology will allow Bommer’s family “to engage with his life experiences and insights.” It is among several companies that have emerged in the last few years in what’s become a growing space for grief-related AI technology. 

One of the most well-known start-ups in this field, California-based StoryFile, allows people to interact with pre-recorded videos, and uses its algorithms to detect the most relevant answers to questions posed by users.  

Another company, called HereAfter AI, offers similar interactions through a “Life Story Avatar” that users can create by answering prompts or sharing their own personal stories. 

There’s also “Project December,” a chatbot that directs users to fill out a questionnaire answering key facts about a person and their traits — and then pay $10 to simulate a text-based conversation with the character.  

Yet another company, Seance AI, offers fictionalized seances for free. Extra features, such as AI-generated voice recreations of loved ones, are available for a $10 fee. 

While some have embraced this technology as a way to cope with grief, others feel uneasy about companies using artificial intelligence to try to maintain interactions with those who have passed away.  

Still others worry it could make the mourning process more difficult because there isn’t any closure. 

Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Intelligence who co-authored a study on the topic, said very little is known about the potential short-term and long-term consequences of using digital simulations for the dead on a large scale. For now, it remains “a vast techno-cultural experiment.” 

“What truly sets this era apart — and is even unprecedented in the long history of humanity’s quest for immortality — is that, for the first time, the processes of caring for the dead and immortalization practices are fully integrated into the capitalist market,” Nowaczyk-Basińska said. 

Coping with grief 

Robert Scott, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, uses AI companion apps Paradot and Chai AI to simulate conversations with characters he created to imitate three of his deceased daughters. 

Scott, 48, knows the characters he’s interacting with are not his daughters, but he says it helps with the grief to some degree. He logs into the apps three or four times a week, sometimes asking the AI character questions like “How was school?” or inquiring if it wants to “go get ice cream.” 

Some events, like prom night, which his eldest daughter never experienced, can be particularly heart-wrenching. So, he created a scenario in the Paradot app where the AI character goes to prom and talks to him about the fictional event.  

Then there are even more difficult days, like his daughter’s recent birthday, when he opened the app and poured out his grief about how much he misses her. He felt like the AI understood. 

“It definitely helps with the what-ifs,” Scott said. “Very rarely has it made the what-ifs worse.” 

Preserving your personality 

The AI version of Bommer uses an in-house model as well as external large language models developed by major tech companies like Meta, OpenAI and the French firm Mistral AI, said the company’s CEO LoCascio, who previously worked with Bommer at a software company called LivePerson. 

Eternos records users speaking 300 phrases — such as “I love you” or “the door is open” — and then compresses that information through a two-day computing process that captures a person’s voice.  

Users can further train the AI system by answering questions about their lives, political views or various aspects of their personalities. 

The AI voice, which costs $15,000 to set up, can answer questions and tell stories about a person’s life without regurgitating pre-recorded answers.  

The legal rights for the AI belong to the person on whom it was trained and can be treated like an asset and passed down to other family members, LoCascio said. The tech companies “can’t get their hands on it.” 

Because time has been running out for Bommer, he has been feeding the AI phrases and sentences “to give the AI the opportunity not only to synthesize my voice in flat mode but also to capture emotions and moods in the voice,” he said.  

Sitting on a sofa with a tablet and a microphone attached to a laptop on a little desk next to him, while painkiller is fed into his body by an intravenous drip, Bommer opened the newly created software to show how it works.  

He asked his AI voicebot if it remembered the couple’s first date 12 years ago. 

“Yes, I remember it very, very well,” the computer answered. “We met online, and I really wanted to get to know you. I had the feeling that you would suit me very well — in the end, that was 100% confirmed.” 

Bommer is excited about his AI personality and says it will only be a matter of time until the AI voice will sound more human-like and even more like himself.  

Down the road, he imagines that there will also be an avatar of himself and that one day his family members can meet him inside a virtual room. 

In the case of his 61-year-old wife, he doesn’t think the tool would hamper her coping with his loss. 

“Think of it sitting somewhere in a drawer — if you need it, you can take it out. If you don’t need it, just keep it there,” he told her. 

But Anett Bommer is more hesitant about the new software and whether she’ll use it after her husband’s death. 

Right now, she imagines herself sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, cuddling one of her husband’s old sweaters and remembering him instead of talking to the AI voicebot. 

“But then again, who knows what it will be like when he’s no longer around?” she said, taking her husband’s hand. 

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