Grieving volunteers chatted with AI versions of the dead, and some found 'the closure I needed'

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being invited into some of life's most intimate moments, including grief. 

A study has suggested that, for some mourners, chatting with an AI-generated version of a deceased loved one can offer a real sense of comfort, even as the technology raises serious ethical concerns, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

What happened?

The findings about the use of chatbots for bereavement support appeared in the journal Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference on June 12. 

A University of Colorado Boulder team worked with 16 grieving volunteers, each of whom interacted with a text-based AI version of the person they had lost.

During roughly 20-minute Zoom chats, each participant messaged two systems: a first-person "reincarnation" bot and a third-person "representation" bot. 

Before those sessions, volunteers had provided a short description of the deceased, their relationship to that person, and detailed the person's typical communication style.

The two setups tended to produce different experiences. The first-person bot felt more immediate and intimate, while the third-person bot pushed participants more toward memory and reflection. Overall, responses were "largely positive."

One volunteer who had lost her mother said speaking with the chatbot felt like "getting the closure I needed so bad. … It's just amazing."

Why does it matter?

The findings have arrived as commercial "griefbots" become more common, despite continuing uncertainty about their psychological effects and ethical implications.

For many participants, emotional credibility counted more than perfect factual recall, and several said mistakes did not matter much.

Study co-author Jed Brubaker, an information scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement, "Maybe the chatbot didn't know when exactly grandma was born, but if it used some slang or regional word choice that she used, it was extremely impactful."

Several volunteers also worried that long-term use could create unhealthy attachments. 

As one participant stated, "Maybe I use this technology for months, and I start growing more fond of it. I don't know if I would like the person I would become if I kept using this always."

Nora Lindemann, a technology ethicist at Osnabrück University in Germany, spoke about the issue with Nature's Tammy Worth in 2025, warning that such interventions can disrupt the grieving process in ways we might not yet understand.

"The crucial danger is people don't need to adjust to a world without this person," Lindemann said, per Smithsonian Magazine. "They can live in a somewhat pretend, in-between stage." 

What's being done?

Researchers are trying to study these tools before the market outpaces the science.

Study co-author Jack Manning, who is also an information scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said he had personal reasons for taking the issue seriously. 

After losing his sister when he was 11, he said he understood both the appeal and the danger of the technology. 

"I felt it was important for me to do the work because the people who are the largest fans might skip the empirical research and just make a product," Manning said in a statement.

Tomasz Hollanek, a technology ethicist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved with the study, told Science News, "If we want to understand how to design these systems ethically, we need more evidence of this kind."

"They love this technology," Manning told Science News. "[Participants] clearly came with a goal in mind. They had a question they felt was unanswered or a detail in their life they were desperate to share."

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