Commercial services creating AI clones of deceased people (thanabots) are expanding and sparking ethical disputes
Companies offer AI "thanabots" trained on the messages, photos and voices of deceased people for 199 to 50 000 USD. Microsoft has a patent for this from 2020, while HereAfter AI is currently shutting down its service.
The commercial sector of so-called thanabots (griefbots) is growing – AI systems that use the digital footprint of a deceased person (messages, photographs, videos, voice recordings, social media posts) to create a conversational chatbot simulating their speech and behaviour. One of the first cases was when Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Replika, created a bot in the style of her deceased friend Roman Mazurenko from his messages. Microsoft owns a patent from 2020 for "creating a conversational chatbot of a specific person" from social data, with the patent explicitly stating that this person may also be someone deceased – a friend, relative, celebrity or historical figure.
According to the article, service prices range from approximately 199 USD for plans from HereAfter AI, which, according to the source, announced its closure in the month the article was published, to 50 000 USD for premium 3D recreations of deceased people from the South Korean company DeepBrain AI, with maintenance fees charged on top.
The article gives a specific example from 2025: the father of seventeen-year-old Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the school shooting in Parkland in 2018, had an AI version of his son created and allowed a journalist to interview it; the avatar answered new questions in the voice of Joaquin and publicly promoted his anti-gun activism. In this context, the author highlights unresolved questions: who has the right to authorise such a recreation (a partner, parent, siblings, or only the person themselves during their lifetime), and the fact that consent is only the beginning – software updates and newly uploaded material can cause the bot to change over time and diverge from the original data on which it was trained.
The rest of the source text, which discusses ethical questions around identity and the processing of personal data of deceased people in greater detail, is not available. You can find details in the source article.
Why it matters
The digital afterlife sector is becoming a real commercial market with prices ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, while the patent held by Microsoft shows that major players are also interested in the technology. At the same time, there are no clear rules on who may consent to the creation of an AI clone of a deceased person, who controls what the bot "says", and how personal data should be handled after death – the closure of HereAfter AI also suggests that the viability of such businesses is uncertain.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
Anyone who wants to protect their digital footprint can explicitly specify during their lifetime whether and how their messages, photographs or voice may be used after death to create an AI clone.
For a business
Companies providing AI clones of deceased people face unclear rules on consent and data ownership, as well as uncertain commercial sustainability, as illustrated by the closure of HereAfter AI.
Risks and compliance More business impacts →Check the original
Event sources
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