Inside a second-floor lab at CU Boulder, Jack Manning and Jed Brubaker are resurrecting the dead.
As the researchers look on, study volunteers log into Zoom and chat with AI-generated representations of lost grandparents, siblings, parents and family friends.
Some get emotional: "I can see her. I can feel her," said one 32-year-old woman during a text-based conversation with her grandmother who died five years ago. "It just feels like I'm getting the closure I needed."
Others plan the next visit: "It was so so powerful," typed a 50-year-old woman to the ghost of her beloved. "I'd like for you to come to me again."
These interactions, chronicled in a paper published this month in the Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, offer the first scientific glimpse at how people use "generative ghosts" — the increasingly popular AI agents trained on data about the dead.
Among other things, the study found that participants preferred ghosts that spoke in the first person, acting as a resurrection rather than a representative. The more accurate and life-like the ghost's emotional tone, dialect and conversational rhythm, the better.
"We originally thought it might feel very Black Mirror creepy to people and make them uncomfortable," said first author Manning, a PhD candidate in Information Science who found his way to the unusual field of study after losing his sister. "I ended up being completely wrong. People thought it was amazing."
Conjuring the dead with AI
Once viewed as science fiction, generative ghosts, sometimes called "griefbots" or "deathbots," are fast becoming a commercial reality.
Platforms like Project December and Séance AI use journal entries, social media posts and texts from the deceased to train text-based ghosts for surviving loved ones to chat with. Others, like HereAfterAI, invite users to submit voice recordings and photos of themselves to create multimedia ghosts for their loved ones to interact with after they're gone. Some start-ups have even created fully-immersive, virtual-reality options , enabling grieving clients to literally walk with a hologram of the dead.
Brubaker, an associate professor of Information Science, predicts that generative ghosts will soone be a regular part of life as we know it. But given their potential to both help and harm, he believes they should be designed with solid research as a guide. That's where his lab comes in.
"To our knowledge, we are conducting the first user experience studies of simulated AI ghosts," said Brubaker.
Don't call me 'champ'
For their inaugural study, the research team recruited 16 people, ages 22 to 50, who had lost a close relative or friend.
Participants logged into Zoom for a brief on-camera interview with a facilitator, who gathered biographical information and other details about the deceased. Meanwhile, in the background, a second researcher plugged this information into a large language model (LLM), building a ghost in real-time.
Participants chatted with two iterations, each for about 20 minutes. One ghost spoke in first-person ("I remember going to the beach together.") Another used third person. ("She loved going to the beach with you.")
The facilitator stood by to intervene if things got uncomfortable, while the operator behind the scenes used the conversation details to fine-tune the ghost.
Subsequent interviews found that, across the board, participants preferred the "reincarnation" over the "representation."
While people seemed willing to overlook occasional inaccuracies, or 'hallucinations' spun up by AI, they cringed if the bot used the wrong term of endearment. (When the ghost of one participant's stepfather called him 'champ' — a term he would never have used— the participant nearly called off the session.)
Users also preferred shorter sentences with emojis rather than the rambling paragraphs that AI tends to produce.
Perhaps the most interesting finding came at the end, when participants were asked if they would use the technology again.
Surprisingly, everyone said yes. But almost all added that they feared what would happen to their grieving loved ones if they got their hands on one.
Why more research is needed
Manning lost his sister to a heart condition when they were kids and had longed for years for more meaningful ways to memorialize her.
When he heard about AI ghosts, he was initially horrified – which is exactly why he felt he was a good fit to study them.
"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.
The lab has already begun the next studies, including one working with mental health professionals to analyze the benefits and risks of interacting with AI ghosts. In addition to seeing their potential peril, Manning says he now also recognizes their promise.
"I think a lot about 11-year-old me. If I had access to ChatGPT and it started responding as my sister late at night without supervision…that is a very scary thought," he said. "But as we have learned through this paper, it can also be an incredibly meaningful experience for people that enables them to get some closure and peace."
