Hollywood stars create an AI app for “talking” to the dead

Calum Worthy and his AI avatar (left), and the 2Wai app with a digital mother avatar. Photo: 2wai

On November 14, 2025, Decrypt reported that the startup 2Wai had launched an app that creates AI avatars of deceased people and allows users to communicate with them through video calls.

The developers introduced a tool called HoloAvatar, which can assemble a digital copy of a person from just a few minutes of video, audio, and text data. The app was created by Disney actor Calum Worthy and producer Russell Geyser. According to the project’s authors, the service is meant to “preserve the memory of beloved ones” and create a “living archive of humanity.”

In the app, users can also create avatars of living people – for example, for interacting with fans or for educational purposes. Worthy has already presented his own digital double, which shares stories about his work with Disney.

The promotional video, posted by Worthy to his X account with 1.2 million followers, has garnered 22 million views and over 5,800 replies. It depicts a pregnant woman video-calling an AI recreation of her late mother for advice, then fast-forwards to the avatar reading bedtime stories to her newborn – and later counseling her adult grandson, played by Worthy.

However, after the video’s release, the service faced a strong backlash. Social media users argued that such technologies could exploit the grief of bereaved families, and lawyers warned about the lack of clear laws regulating the creation of digital copies of the dead and the protection of their data.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that in Greece believers called on the Church to oppose digital passports.

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