Grief in the Age of Digital Immortality

Big Tech promises to fix the “glitch” of death and dying.

Posted May 3, 2026 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

As this weekend marks the sixth-year of my father’s death, I have been reflecting on the process of grief more than usual. While I saved a trove of voicemails from him years before his death, I rarely listen to them—although knowing they are accessible to me has always been a source of comfort. I decided to play one message at random this weekend, and was surprised at the intensity of my grief and sorrow as I heard an all-too familiar and loving voice that I haven’t had the privilege to listen to in what feels like a lot longer than six years.

But alas, Big Tech is offering big promises to save us from our grief.

Given all the ways that technology companies have expanded their reach into our everyday lives, monetizing virtually every aspect of the human experience (e.g., Zuboff, 2019), perhaps it is unsurprising to hear that many of these same companies are offering us digital immortality. Largely derived from generative AI , companies are offering digital avatars of our loved ones after they have died. We can seek out “chatbots” imitating the cadences of our deceased loved ones as long as we are willing to offer up all their digital data or other forms of information about them prior to their death. Silicon Valley is ready to enable users to bypass the messiness of grief altogether—so long as we have the data that they can harness.

In fact, thought leaders have described a “grief tech industry” of ghost bots, digital clones and other “innovations” to help users “process” the grieving experience. Thanatechnology refers to the process of using technological innovations, such as the internet, to better understand death, and process grief. However, the practice has moved from virtual funerals in digital spaces to more invasive and ethically questionable ones such as charging mourners subscriptions to stay “in touch” with their dead loved ones via chatbot.

I frequently invite readers to rethink their relationship to technology, particularly in lieu of the role our digital gadgets have played in swallowing up more and more of our time. In recent years—and with the emergence of AI in particular—it appears that rather than consumers deriving ways that technology can serve their lives, our lives are being usurped in service of technology—and the titans of the industry who have unchecked power and reach.

In my most recent book, “Disconnection: The Search for Identity in a Digital Age,” I explicitly identify the concept of anthropomorphism , a tendency we have as humans to impose sentience on non-human phenomena (Aalai, 2026). This is more likely to be triggered in cases where the non-human entity is mimicking human-like qualities, with language in particular making it more difficult for us to discern that what we are engaging in doesn’t have sentience. Now, imagine this same tendency, but magnified in the case of a person who is grieving, and now the digital avatar they are engaging in not only looks like their deceased loved one, but moves, talks, jokes, speaks, and reflects their shared memories together. While intellectually the person mourning likely knows their interaction isn’t with their dead loved one, psychologically, it can be very hard to make that distinction when the perception and experience of their loved one is right there to engage with on the screen.

Acceptance is a necessary part of the grieving process. Acceptance that the loved one is dead, perhaps even acceptance around the circumstances of their death—particularly in cases of an unexpected, traumatic or tragic demise. Acceptance necessitates confronting reality—not only in terms of our new normal in the material world without this loved one, but also as part of a process of moving forward in life without this person.

Any person or entity that promotes a notion of “closure” regarding the process of grief is lying to you—or has yet to grieve themselves. Closure is an illusion when it comes to the process of grief—just as tech companies are selling users’ illusions when they present their newest innovations as enabling the grieving process. Subscription services are profitable precisely because users agree to pay a monthly service fee—closure in this case defies profitability.

Acceptance is not closure, because the process of acceptance requires continual renegotiation. Closure implies moving on —acceptance holds space for moving forward, while recognizing letting go entirely will not be possible. The process of acceptance is why I do not regularly listen to my father’s voicemails despite missing him and wanting to hear his voice. It is also why hearing it today was so jarring for me—but also allowed an emotional release for me to continue processing my grief. Six years in, my grief changed form, but continues to move and grow, just as I do. I knew on the same day that my father died that I would grieve this loss for the rest of my life—in fact, this revelation, rather than contributing to my sorrow, actually gave me relief. I was in no rush to move forward, because I had the rest of my life to figure out how to live without him in this world.

Much as I would love to engage with my father again, any digital avatar would just be a cheap imitation. Moreover, as much as the sensory experience could compel me to believe we were interacting again in real time, ultimately, our interaction would be mediated by the 1s and 0s that define the user experience. I prefer to engage in spiritual practices that enable me to reconnect with my father—and have no intention of having any of that profoundly intimate and human experience extracted for data by any technology company.

This is the crux of why new trends regarding digital afterlives are so disturbing—the process of grieving is so fundamental to being sentient, that any attempts at altering our mortality or how we confront it will necessarily alter our understanding of being human. Grief is an inevitable and essential aspect of living in this world—alter that thread, even via an illusion, and who knows what other unforeseen byproducts will await us.

Aalai, A. (2026). Disconnection: The Search for Identity in a Digital Age . Innovative Ink: Kendall Hunt. ISBN: 9798319705013

Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Hachette Book Group: New York.

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Azadeh Aalai, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Psychology at Queensborough Community College in New York.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.