Afterlife AI

Digital Legacy & Death Online: Statistics 2026

A sourced reference on what happens to accounts, data and memories after we die, with every figure linked to its original third-party source.

Reviewed: 28 June 2026 · Figures are third-party data, each linked to its source

Your digital legacy is the sum of the online accounts, files, photos, messages, profiles and other digital records you leave behind when you die. As more of life moves online, more of what we leave behind is digital, yet very few people have made any plan for it. This page collects verifiable, third-party statistics on death online and digital legacy planning. Each number is drawn from a named source and linked below. These are external figures, not Afterlife AI data.

The dead online: scale of the problem

Up to 4.9 billion Facebook profiles could belong to deceased users by 2100 if the network keeps growing at recent rates, and at minimum 1.4 billion people who were on the platform in 2018 will have died by then even if it never adds another user. (Oxford Internet Institute / Big Data & Society, 2019)

Under that conservative scenario, the dead would outnumber the living on Facebook within about 50 years. (Oxford Internet Institute / Big Data & Society, 2019)

Nearly 44% of those deceased profiles are projected to come from Asia by the end of the century, with India and Indonesia alone accounting for a cumulative 278.8 million by 2100. (Oxford Internet Institute / Big Data & Society, 2019)

For context on the live platform, Facebook reported roughly 3.07 billion monthly active users in 2024, the base from which these future totals are drawn. (Meta / Macromicro data, 2024)

Globally, around 65 million people die each year, every one of them potentially leaving accounts and data behind. (WHO / UN Population Division estimates, 2024)

Wills and estate plans: most people have none

Only 32% of Americans had a will in 2024, a 6 percentage point fall from 2023 and the first decline in estate planning rates since 2020. (Caring.com 2024 Wills and Estate Planning Study)

40% of Americans without a will say it is because they do not believe they have enough assets to leave behind. (Caring.com 2024 Wills and Estate Planning Study)

In the UK, over half of adults have no will, according to the government-backed Money and Pensions Service. (Money and Pensions Service, 2025)

In Canada, half of adults say they do not have a will, and a further 13% have one that is out of date. Four in five Canadians under 35 have no will at all. (Angus Reid Institute, 2023)

In Australia, the NSW Government estimates that around 60% of people in NSW do not have a valid will. (NSW Trustee & Guardian / NSW Government)

Digital assets are almost never planned for

93% of people who have a will have not included their digital assets in it, and just 26% of UK adults know what happens to their digital assets after they die. (The Law Society / Populus survey, 2020)

Americans estimate the value of their digital assets at $191,516 on average, yet only 29% feel knowledgeable about digital asset estate planning and 76% report having little or no knowledge of it. (Bryn Mawr Trust 2024 Digital Assets Survey, via BusinessWire)

In that same survey, 79% of Americans said protecting their digital assets is important, but only 44% of those with a financial advisor said the topic had ever come up in conversation. (Bryn Mawr Trust 2024 Digital Assets Survey, via BusinessWire)

Awareness of the tools that already exist is strikingly low: a survey of more than 1,200 Canadians found that almost 70% of social media users had no idea that account pre-planning tools and features even exist. (Epilogue / Your Digital Undertaker survey)

How much digital data we each hold

The average internet user has 168 passwords for personal accounts, a 68% rise from around 80 in 2020. (NordPass, 2024)

Humanity captured roughly 1.94 trillion photos in 2024, and an estimated 14.3 trillion photos existed in the world that year. (Photutorial photo statistics, 2024)

Around 5.3 billion photos are taken every day, the equivalent of about 61,400 every second. (Photutorial photo statistics, 2024)

Much of this is locked behind credentials no one else can reach. When a phone number, an authenticator app or a backup email guards an account, families are frequently unable to get in even when they know the password, as the platform access limits below make clear.

Platform tools for death online

Google's Inactive Account Manager lets a user nominate up to 10 people to receive parts of their data, and to set the account to be treated as inactive after 3, 6, 12 or 18 months of no activity. (Google Account Help)

Apple's Digital Legacy feature, launched with iOS 15.2 on 13 December 2021, lets a user name up to 5 Legacy Contacts who can request access to iCloud data after death, using an access key plus a verified death certificate. (Apple Support)

Apple Legacy Contacts cannot retrieve Keychain passwords or payment information, and Microsoft generally requires a court order or subpoena to release a deceased person's account data, illustrating how partial these inheritance paths are. (Apple Support)

Facebook lets a user appoint a Legacy Contact who can manage a memorialised profile once it is marked "Remembering", but they can only act after the account is memorialised and within strict limits. (Facebook Help Center)

Grief and memorialisation online

In an early study of online mourning, 60% of 18 to 25 year olds had posted on, viewed or created a memorial page. (Carroll & Landry, 2010, via The Keep / EIU)

Among 401 people bereaved by suicide in a French survey, 61.6% said they used social media after the death of their relative, most often to maintain a continuing bond and to find community. (French online survey, PMC, 2024)

Lost forever: crypto and orphaned data

Between 17% and 23% of all mined Bitcoin, on the order of 2.78 to 3.79 million coins, are estimated to be permanently lost, much of it because the private keys were forgotten or died with their owner. (Chainalysis, reported by Fortune, 2017)

Generative AI and digital memory

Use of AI is no longer fringe: 34% of US adults said they had used ChatGPT by 2025, roughly double the share in 2023. (Pew Research Center, 2025)

Among adults under 30, the figure rises to 58%, signalling a generation comfortable interacting with AI long before they think about what should outlast them. (Pew Research Center, 2025)

What this means, and where Afterlife AI fits

The pattern across every figure above is the same: we are creating more digital life than ever, and almost none of us have decided, in advance and with consent, what should happen to it. Platform tools exist but are little known, wills rarely mention digital assets, and families are often locked out at the worst possible moment.

Afterlife AI™ is built for the gap these numbers describe. It is a consent-based digital legacy you build while you are alive: you record memories and conversations to shape a Persona that reflects how you think and speak, you decide who can reach it, and your choices are sealed at Executor Lock™ so they cannot be altered after you die. You can start free, with a one-time build budget of 60 memories and 100 conversations, no card and no time limit. None of the third-party statistics on this page are Afterlife AI data, and no organisation cited here endorses Afterlife AI; they simply describe the world we are responding to.

Methodology & sources

Every statistic on this page is a third-party figure published by the organisation named beside it, and each links to that source. Figures come from a mix of peer-reviewed research (Oxford Internet Institute, academic journals), official platform documentation (Google, Apple, Meta), reputable consumer and legal surveys (Caring.com, The Law Society, Money and Pensions Service, Angus Reid, Bryn Mawr Trust, NordPass) and recognised statistical and news sources (WHO, Pew Research Center, Fortune reporting on Chainalysis). Where a figure depends on a projection or a specific survey sample, the year and source make that clear. We reproduce these figures for reference only. We do not claim them as our own data, and inclusion here is not an endorsement of Afterlife AI by any cited party. If you spot a figure that has been superseded, the linked source is the authority.

Frequently asked questions

How many dead people will be on Facebook? Oxford Internet Institute researchers project that by 2100 the platform could hold up to 4.9 billion deceased profiles if it keeps growing, and at minimum 1.4 billion from its 2018 user base alone. Under conservative assumptions, the dead could outnumber the living on Facebook within about 50 years.

What percentage of people have a will? Only 32% of Americans had a will in 2024 (Caring.com). In the UK, over half of adults have none (Money and Pensions Service), in Canada about half do not (Angus Reid), and the NSW Government estimates around 60% of people in NSW lack a valid will.

Do people plan for their digital assets? Rarely. The Law Society found 93% of people with a will had not included their digital assets, and only 26% of UK adults knew what happens to those assets after death. A Bryn Mawr Trust survey found 76% of Americans had little or no knowledge of digital asset planning.

Can families access a deceased relative's online accounts? Often not easily. Even with a password, accounts may be guarded by a phone number, authenticator app or backup email. Apple Legacy Contacts cannot retrieve Keychain passwords, and Microsoft generally requires a court order, so access is partial and slow.

How much crypto is lost when owners die? Chainalysis estimated that between 17% and 23% of all mined Bitcoin (roughly 2.78 to 3.79 million coins) is permanently lost, much of it because private keys were forgotten or never passed on.

How does Afterlife AI handle digital legacy? Afterlife AI™ is a consent-based digital legacy you build while alive: you shape a Persona from your own memories and conversations, decide who can reach it, and seal those choices at Executor Lock™ so they cannot change after death. You can start free with a one-time build budget of 60 memories and 100 conversations.

Sources

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