![\"Robot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/SEI_275530940-7ff4.jpg\")
\n\t\tThe \u2018digital afterlife\u2019 might now be within reach as a company works to make AI that imitates the personalities of departed loved ones (Picture: Getty Images\/iStockphoto)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tThe \u2018digital afterlife\u2019 might now be within reach as a company works to make AI that imitates the personalities of departed loved ones (Picture: Getty Images\/iStockphoto)<\/p>\n
A tech CEO has said the AI world means what is real and what is not real \u2018starts to evolve\u2019 \u2013 as he changes how people cope with grief by creating chatbots with the personality of departed loved ones.<\/p>\n
Justin Harrison started You, Only Virtual (YOV) after his mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer<\/a>. The company began to preserve this relationship with his mother, building a digital avatar of her \u2013 known as a Versona \u2013 for after she passed.<\/p>\n The former filmmaker said their \u2018griefbots\u2019 can \u2018help with the grieving process and allow people to stay connected with their loved ones in a way that feels more natural\u2019.<\/p>\n The AI was trained on text messages and phone<\/a> calls between Mr Harrison and his mother while she was alive, alongside using voice memos and videos to capture her voice.<\/p>\n A free version of YOV allows access to an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT<\/a>, but with the loved one\u2019s personality, while a paid version opens up phone calls to bring back someone\u2019s voice from the dead.<\/p>\n Mr Harrison demonstrated one such call for Metro<\/strong>, calling the Versona to say \u2018I love you, mom\u2019, to which it replied \u2018I love you too, sweetheart\u2019.<\/p>\n Despite the comforting conversations it offers, the technology has been criticised for putting users at risk of over-reliance and dehumanising the grieving process.<\/p>\n Many have compared the tech to dystopian TV series Black Mirror<\/a>, where in one episode a grieving woman uses an app and later an android with the AI-powered personality of her deceased boyfriend.<\/p>\n Researchers at Cambridge<\/a> University have also raised concern<\/a> that such AI chatbots would be a \u2018high risk\u2019 pursuit which risks psychological harm for users and disrespect towards the rights of the deceased.<\/p>\n But on the need to ensure the griefbots are safe, Mr Harrison said: \u2018I\u2019m not concerned with people becoming too reliant on the technology.\u2019<\/p>\n He maintains that \u2018there\u2019s no such thing as the natural grieving process\u2019, so the AI has nothing to disrupt for something so individualised.<\/p>\n He added that in the past people did not have photos, letters or digital social media<\/a> to hold on to loved ones, so the \u2018tools to help us grieve\u2019 and \u2018stay connected\u2019 are always changing.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tDo you think AI ‘griefbots’ are a good idea?<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tStay up to date with the stories everybody\u2019s talking about by signing up to Metro’s News Updates newsletter.<\/p>\n \t\t The CEO explained that while some people might be predisposed to dependence, this side effect is not exclusive to AI tech.<\/p>\n \u2018If it\u2019s the difference between somebody self-harming and somebody talking on the phone too much, then let them talk on the phone too much, that\u2019s a way better outcome,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n He added that grieving by \u2018talking to a counselor\u2019 could also be criticised as sessions there might run up \u2018$180 an hour\u2019.<\/p>\n The digital afterlife doesn\u2019t stop at personal relationships, however, as YOV is now working with museums to let visitors talk with figures from the past.<\/p>\n Mr Harrison said this enables \u2018an authentic connection that keeps history alive\u2019. His company has been creating virtual avatars of Holocaust survivors to preserve the \u2018oral history\u2019 when the people themselves are no longer around.<\/p>\n While many might resist this new technology, Mr Harrison asserts it is just \u2018the tip of the tip of the iceberg\u2019 and soon we will have \u2018fully fledged relationships with digital personas\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ll be able to sit in a restaurant with my mother in my lifetime,\u2019 he added, hoping to see her projected using augmented reality (AR) wearables.<\/p>\n \t\t What started with virtual assistants such as Siri or Alexa could soon be personas visible through AR glasses or even engineered into full humanlike robots<\/a>, according to the CEO.<\/p>\n Mr Harrison said this is now an evolution of what is \u2018real and not real\u2019; from TV to social media, phone calls to Zoom, he stressed that all developments at first seem \u2018bizarre\u2019 to those in the past.<\/p>\n His company is not alone in its technological approach to grief, as former Disney<\/a> TV star Calum Worthy has recently founded an app to render loved ones into interactive 3D chatbots.<\/p>\n An advert for this new venture 2wai<\/a> even showed a pregnant woman doing this with her mother, then using the app after her mum had died to be able to tell her grandchild a bedtime story from beyond the grave.<\/p>\n Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow Arrow![\"it](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/SEI_275414992-66f3-e1763984947372.jpg\")
\n\t\tJustin Harrison said he started his AI company You, Only Virtual to \u2018help ease the grieving process\u2019 after his mother was diagnosed with cancer<\/p>\n![\"Justin](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/SEI_275531658-a4c7-e1763984918569.jpg\")
\n\t\tTech entrepreneur Justin Harrison with his mother<\/p>\n
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