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Some South Korean families are using AI to see and hear dead loved ones again.
Startups are turning photos, voice samples, and family-written scripts into short clips of deceased relatives, according to the Associated Press. Seoul-based Vaice created one for Lee Geon Hui, whose father cried after watching an AI version of his late grandfather.
A voice, a face, and a message can offer comfort when death ends the conversation. New risks follow as short memorial clips develop into lifelike avatars that can respond.
AI enters family remembrance rituals
In some South Korean homes, AI clips are being played at gatherings where relatives already remember the dead.
Vaice CEO Jeongu Won told AP that many customers show them during memorial rituals or major Korean holidays. Relatives usually write the scripts themselves, often adding “I love you” or addressing regrets they never resolved with their late parents.
Private use has become a visible business. Won said Vaice serves about 300 customers a month, mostly people in their 40s and 50s commissioning clips of late parents. Others order videos of grandparents as gifts for their parents.
According to Won, the AI company needs only a few photos and short voice samples. A basic three-to-five-minute video costs 600,000 won, or about $390.
DeepBrain AI moves memorial services toward avatars
DeepBrain AI partnered with funeral service provider Preedlife to offer “Re;memory,” a service that recreates deceased parents as AI avatars capable of real-time communication. Its earlier model relied on about three hours of filming and interviews while the person was still alive.
Re;memory works more like a planned digital legacy than a one-time tribute. DeepBrain uses deep learning and video synthesis to create avatars with synchronized lip, mouth, and head movements.
Material requirements are shrinking. UPI News Korea reported that DeepBrain later claimed it could create a conversational avatar from one photo and about 10 seconds of recorded voice.
“In the past, we needed around three hours of interview material,” a DeepBrain executive said. “But now, we can generate a replica even after the loved one has passed away.”
Korean families face new choices over digital mourning
A recreated voice can help people say love, regret, or forgiveness when death left no final conversation.
Emotional comfort can also create legal and psychological risk, though. Choung Wan, an emeritus professor at Kyung Hee University Law School, told AP that South Korea urgently needs laws to protect the dignity and rights of the deceased, including limits on the commercial use of their images and voices.
Questions grow when the clips start talking back. Choung warned that healthy mourning involves accepting a person’s absence, and that speaking with an AI system simulating a living person could leave bereaved families “trapped in a fantasy.”
South Korea may become an early test case for a question other markets may soon face. Who can give permission for a digital afterlife, and what limits should follow once that version exists?
South Korea’s AI Basic Act is now a near-term compliance issue for foreign AI firms serving Korean users.