'It feels like, almost, he's here': How AI is changing the way we grieve

From voice clones to digital avatars, AI is offering new ways to digitally preserve loved ones — and raising concerns about data, consent and how this tech stands to impact how we mourn

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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.