An AI Version of Me for My Kids: Your Children Will Not Want a Recording, They Will Want to Ask

An AI version of you for your kids is a Persona: a governed, private representation of you, built only from the memories you record while alive, that answers your children's questions in your words and, with your recorded consent, in your voice. A Persona is not a resurrection, not a legal version of you, and never you.

The standard first, before my product. Anything sold under this name to a parent should be built by the parent and nobody else, should learn only from what the parent said, should stop learning the day the parent dies, should open only to the people the parent named, on the parent's terms, and should be deletable while the parent lives. Anything less is a substitute, and a substitute is the thing that interrupts grief rather than answering it.

Afterlife AI meets that standard, with two shortfalls. A Persona is a version of you, never you. And a Persona lives inside a company, which is why you can export your written data and memories as a structured file and delete everything at any time; voice recordings leaving as files is a commitment, not yet a feature.

A recording replays. A Persona answers. That is the whole difference.

You talk. Your Persona asks a question, you answer by voice or text, and every answer becomes a memory that only you supplied. A memory is one thing you told your Persona, an answer, a story, a rule, an opinion, kept in your own words and never rewritten. The free build is 50 memories, no card, no expiry.

The questions follow eleven dimensions rather than a form, from identity and core beliefs to legacy messages and family instructions. Some are small: the house you grew up in. Others are not: what you would say to your daughter on her wedding morning. Earlier answers shape later questions, which is why the second hour is usually more searching than the first.

Voice is recorded in the same session, free, with your spoken consent, and the first listen is free; hearing your Persona speak in your voice after that is the paid part. The full sequence from first screen to Executor Lock has its own page; for a parent, the practical shape is a phone against the fruit bowl on a Sunday, ten minutes, one question. While you are alive, nobody talks with your Persona but you and anyone you deliberately invite.

Build in your own words, on your own Sunday, or the answers are not yours.

Anything, and your Persona answers from what you shared, and only that. A child at thirty can ask what you were frightened of at thirty, how you knew to take the job, and whether you had regrets: the questions in what your child will want to ask you at thirty, which arrive about the age the child has just reached.

What your Persona will never do is invent. Your Persona stays inside what you actually shared, and where your memories run out the answer runs out with them. A plausible answer in your voice about a question you never addressed is a false memory handed to your own child.

The second thing your Persona will never do is drift. Drift is the slow movement of an AI's answers away from the person they represent, one interaction at a time. Wellett Potter, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of New England, named the risk in The Conversation on 4 February 2026: responses that drift until they misstate the values of the person who died. Executor Lock is the answer. After your verified death your Persona is a perfect snapshot: nothing added, no retraining, nothing learned from your family's questions. One concession: no AI system is deterministic, so what we promise is the binding, an append-only audit ledger after the lock, and that nobody, including my company, can rewrite your memories or move your boundaries.

Your Persona will only ever say what you gave them to say.

Start building your legacy Free build, 50 memories, no card required.

When they are adults, after your Executor Lock activates, and under the release rules you set while alive. Adults only is a rule, not a preference: nobody under 18, or under the local age of majority, uses Afterlife AI. The privacy policy says users aged 18 and over, and I gave EL MUNDO the same line as a red line.

Cambridge researchers Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basinska, in Philosophy and Technology on 9 May 2024, called for age restrictions across this category, citing a child whose simulated parent generates confusing responses as it adapts to the child (University of Cambridge, 9 May 2024). A system that adapts to a grieving child is exactly what we refuse to build.

A Trusted Contact is a person you nominate while alive who can be given access to your Persona on terms you set, and who confirms your death. Executor Lock is the process that, after verified evidence of death, identity verification of your nominated person and a defined waiting period, freezes your Persona as a perfect snapshot under read-only governance. Release rules are the terms you set while alive: who is on the list, what each person can reach, which topics are reserved, and when each person's access begins.

Access can begin at once after the lock or be delayed until an age you choose; the Executor Lock page gives the example of memories sealed for ten years before the youngest grandchild may view them. What I will not promise is a message landing on a birthday. Your Persona is released after your Executor Lock activates, on your rules. Your Trusted Contact and Executor are then stewards, not owners: they cannot edit a memory, widen the list, or put words in your Persona's mouth. The family's side of that first conversation is in messages for my children after death.

Your children meet you as adults, on your terms, and the terms cannot change.

Leave all three. A letter holds what you thought to say on one day. A recording holds how you said it. Only a Persona holds an answer to a question you did not foresee.

A film of you laughing in the kitchen is you in a way nothing I build is; make one this week. Its weakness is practical: under Apple's Legacy Contact process the person you designate needs the access key you generated and your death certificate to request your photos, messages, notes and files. A recording on a phone nobody can open is a recording nobody hears. The letter wins one row outright, because a letter needs no company to exist and a Persona lives inside mine.

The objection I hear most: your children will find it strange. Some will. Ricardo F. Colmenero asked me, for EL MUNDO, what I would do if my own children said thanks, Dad, but I will not use it. Perfectly fine, I said, and it does not mean they will think the same in twenty years. Nobody is enrolled automatically, and a Persona nobody opens simply waits. The strange version is built after somebody died, by somebody else. Yours is built by you.

Make the film, write the letter, and build the thing that answers.

Nothing to build. The Free plan is 50 memories, no card, never expires, with chat, voice recording with the first listen free, Executor Lock setup and one Trusted Contact. Legacy is $14.99 a month: your Persona speaking in your own voice, 500 memories and two Trusted Contacts. Eternal is $29.99 a month: unlimited memories and storage, five Trusted Contacts and family legacy planning. Prices are in US dollars, and the full table is at Afterlife AI pricing.

Two rules matter more than the prices. Your family inherits the time you have paid for, so a plan you hold at your death is theirs after the lock. And you can stop paying at any time and your free build stays, because the pricing page says in its own words that your Free plan never expires.

Afterlife AI is live on the Apple App Store as Afterlife AI: Digital Legacy App, developer Idy Pty Ltd, free with in-app purchases, and on the web at app.afterlife.ai; the app page says what to do where. Afterlife AI is available on Android too; the iPhone app leads on features, and the Android app does not yet have everything the iPhone app has. Who you are paying: Idy Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australian-hosted data never sold and never used to train general AI models (trust page), ranked second for Australian patent filings in the IP Australia 2026 Report (about us).

You are not buying storage. You are buying the lock.

Start with the thing they already ask for, and record it before you feel ready. The 2026 Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model from Judi's House estimates that one in eleven US children will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18, from 2020 to 2024 vital statistics (Judi's House, CBEM). Every one of those families would have taken ten minutes if someone had said which ten.

Why I built one: Ricardo F. Colmenero asked whether a personal experience pushed me, and I could not name one, though my father, whom I worked beside, was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2024 and died suddenly, and I suspect that sits underneath the work. What I could point to was four children: "una especie de seguro de vida", as I put it to EL MUNDO, a kind of life insurance for the values I would want them to carry. I gave the newspaper my own questions. What would you say at your daughter's wedding. What would you tell your son at twenty-one.

The order I would record in:

1. Say the date and who you are talking to. Forty-one, a Sunday in September, makes every answer land as yours.

2. The story they already ask for. Once, properly, with the details you usually skip.

3. How you decided the big things. The move, the job, the marriage, the child. The deciding, not the outcome.

4. What you were frightened of at their age. The honest answer is the most useful memory you own.

5. The milestone answers. The wedding morning, the twenty-first birthday, the first child.

6. The rules you want kept, and the ones you would let go. Values are what a Persona carries best.

Six memories, one Sunday, forty-four left in the free build. Then come back, because the second hour is where you say the thing you have never said.

I opened by saying your children will not want a recording. They will keep the recording and the letter. What they will reach for at thirty, in the week something goes wrong, is the thing that can be asked. The standard cannot be whether it sounds like you. The standard has to be whether what answers is still you, and only a lock makes that true; the hologram at the Christmas table rests on the same point.

Record the date, tell the story, and let the lock do the rest.

Can I make an AI version of myself for my kids?

Yes, while you are alive, and only you can build one. On Afterlife AI you build a Persona by answering questions by voice or text, and every answer becomes a memory in your own words. The free build is 50 memories, no card, no expiry, with voice recorded free. Your children meet your Persona as adults, after your verified death, under the release rules you set.

What app lets my kids talk to an AI version of me?

Afterlife AI, on the Apple App Store as Afterlife AI: Digital Legacy App by Idy Pty Ltd, and on the web at app.afterlife.ai. The app is free with in-app purchases, and both reach the same Persona. Afterlife AI is also available on Android; the iPhone app leads on features, and the Android app does not yet have everything the iPhone app has. Your kids download nothing now; they meet your Persona as adults after your Executor Lock activates.

How old do my children have to be to talk to my Persona?

Adults. Nobody under 18, or under the local age of majority, uses Afterlife AI, and the privacy policy states the service is intended for users aged 18 and over. A child who is nine when you die meets your Persona at eighteen at the earliest, and later if your release rules say so. The rule follows the academic recommendation for age restrictions on this category.

Will the AI version of me say things I never said?

No. Your Persona answers from the memories you recorded and stays inside what you actually shared; where your memories run out, the answer runs out too. After your verified death, Executor Lock freezes your Persona as a perfect snapshot: nothing added, no retraining, nothing learned from your family's questions, and nobody, including the company, can rewrite a memory or move your boundaries.

How much does it cost to leave an AI version of myself for my children?

Nothing to build, and a subscription if you want depth and your voice heard. The Free plan is 50 memories, no card, never expires. Legacy is $14.99 a month for 500 memories and your Persona speaking in your voice; Eternal is $29.99 a month for unlimited memories and storage. Prices are in US dollars, your family inherits the time you have paid for, and your free build stays if you stop paying.

Is it strange to leave an AI version of yourself for your kids?

Some of your children may find it strange. When EL MUNDO asked what I would do if mine said thanks, Dad, but I will not use it, I said it would be perfectly fine, and that it does not mean they will think the same in twenty years. Nobody is enrolled automatically, and a Persona nobody opens simply waits. The unsettling version is built after a death, by someone else. Yours is built by you.

• Messages for my children after death: the family's side of the lock.

• What your child will want to ask you at thirty: the questions.

• Executor Lock: the three phases, and who should be your steward.

• How Afterlife AI works: first screen to lock, in numbered steps.

• The hologram at the Christmas table: what I told EL MUNDO.

1. Ricardo F. Colmenero, Chris Williams, CEO de Afterlife: "En cinco u ocho años podrás hablar con el holograma de un familiar fallecido en la mesa de Navidad", EL MUNDO, 30 August 2026.

2. Afterlife AI, AI Persona and digital legacy service, read 6 September 2026.

3. Afterlife AI, Talk with a Persona, read 6 September 2026.

4. Afterlife AI, Executor Lock, read 6 September 2026.

5. Afterlife AI, Plans and pricing, read 6 September 2026.

6. Afterlife AI, Privacy policy, read 6 September 2026: users aged 18 and over, portable format.

7. Afterlife AI, About us, read 6 September 2026.

8. Apple App Store, Afterlife AI: Digital Legacy App, read 6 September 2026.

9. Judi's House, Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, 2026 estimates, read 6 September 2026.

10. University of Cambridge, Call for safeguards to prevent unwanted 'hauntings' by AI chatbots of dead loved ones, 9 May 2024.

11. Wellett Potter, An 'AI afterlife' is now a real option, but what becomes of your legal status?, The Conversation, 4 February 2026.

12. Apple Support, How to add a Legacy Contact for your Apple Account, read 6 September 2026.

Chris Williams is the founder and CEO of Afterlife AI, a consumer brand of Idy Pty Ltd in Sydney, and the architect of Executor Lock, the process that locks a Persona as a perfect snapshot at verified death. He is a father of four. He has been interviewed on consent-first digital legacy by EL MUNDO, Channel 10 News, The Daily Telegraph and ABC radio. Before Afterlife AI he founded Natural Solar, an Australian solar energy company.