• Posted July 15, 2026

AI Can Create 'Ghosts' Of Lost Loved Ones, But Would You Want To Meet Them?

Artificial intelligence simulations of the dead are already a reality. 

Services like HereAfterAI, Project December and Séance AI are converting the deceased's photos, text messages and other data into digital "ghosts" for loved ones to commune with.

Is the technology a helpful aid to assuage the grief of those left behind? 

Or could it be a damaging phenomenon, akin to scenes from the dystopian TV show "Black Mirror?"

A team at the University of Colorado at Boulder sought to find out.

“To our knowledge, we are conducting the first user experience studies of simulated AI ghosts,” said study co-author Jed Brubker, an associate professor of information science. 

These ghosts have gotten increasingly sophisticated — some incarnations now appear as virtual-reality holograms that allow grieving loved ones to literally walk and talk with the dead. 

In their study, Brubaker and study co-author Jack Manning enrolled 16 volunteers, ranging in age from 22 to 50. Each was grieving after having lost a close relative or friend. 

Based on detailed information supplied by each participant, Brubaker and Manning created in real time two forms of a digital ghost (also known as “griefbots” or “deathbots") mimicking the loved one the participant had lost. 

One version of the ghost was dubbed a “representation" and spoke in the third person ("She loved going to the beach with you."), while the other was called a "reincarnation" and spoke in the first person ("I loved going to the beach with you.")

Participants then engaged with the ghost for 20 minutes via Zoom. 

The results surprised the researchers. 

“We originally thought it might feel very Black Mirror creepy to people and make them uncomfortable,” said Manning, a PhD candidate in information science who got involved in the research after losing his sister. “I ended up being completely wrong. People thought it was amazing.”

People strongly preferred the reincarnation form of the bot to the representation form — the more like the real person they'd lost, the better.

“I can see her. I can feel her,” one 32-year-old woman told the researchers during a text-based conversation with her grandmother who died five years ago. “It just feels like I’m getting the closure I needed.”

A 50-year-old woman texted the ghost of her loved one: “It was so so powerful. I’d like for you to come to me again.”

Of course, digital glitches could get in the way. 

These AI "hallucinations" often had ghosts saying unlikely things. In one case, a man talking to the deathbot of his stepfather cringed when the ghost called him "champ" — a word he'd never have used when he was alive. The incident disturbed the grieving son so much that he almost terminated the session, the researchers said.

Participants also seemed to prefer the "dead" texting them in short phrases, often with emojis, versus the long paragraphs that AI can sometimes produce.

However, one finding was clear: All of the grieving participants who tried out a digital ghost said they would try it again.

But Manning — who lost his sister to a heart condition when he was a child — still worries about the impact of digital ghosts in some contexts.

“I think a lot about 11-year-old me. If I had access to ChatGPT and it started responding as my sister late at night without supervision…that is a very scary thought,” he said. “But as we have learned through this paper, it can also be an incredibly meaningful experience for people that enables them to get some closure and peace.”

The findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference. 

More information

There's more on dealing with grief at the U.S. National Institute on Aging.

SOURCE: University of Colorado at Boulder, news release, June 30, 2026