Digital Afterlife

The dead are still here. They’re made to speak, they continue to ‘work,’ and they influence our everyday lives in ways that were science fiction a few years ago.

Chatbots trained on the dead are making headlines and driving the plots of movies and TV series. The dead stay in their social networks, retained by default. The recently deceased are deep faked for emotional, commercial, and ideological purposes. We’re sold the idea that technology can ‘solve’ grief. And the technology is advancing faster than our ability to think through what it means.

Just because something is technologically possible doesn’t mean that these developments are desirable. Elaine has spent over two decades researching what happens when death meets the digital world and is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. In her keynotes, she addresses the intimate, the systemic, and the corporate implications of digital death.

Drawing on her consultancy work, groundbreaking books, academic scholarship, and behind-the-scenes roles advising on grief-technology storylines, Elaine explores:

• The grief bot revolution: Why AI companions for the bereaved are poised to go mainstream, and what we need to understand before they do

• Legacy and environment: How our digital Doppelgängers outlast us, from their carbon costs to the data trails we leave that affect future generations

• Corporate accountability: What happens when the deceased become training data, product-development fuel, or posthumous influencers or workers

• Designing your digital afterlife: Practical frameworks for individuals and organisations to prepare now

Why this talk?

Right now, the speaking market is flooded with people talking about AI. Most focus on either productivity or disruption: how to harness AI’s benefits or understand its existential risks. Elaine applies a unique lens that exposes not just different questions, but unexplored territories.

Elaine’s death-lens on AI cuts is a different take because it starts with the ultimate human universal — death — and follows threads from there. Audiences leave thinking differently about their own digital lives, often with an unexpected sense of clarity and motivation to act. Elaine brings warmth and humour to territory most people instinctively avoid.

Who is this for?

Elaine's digital-legacy talks work for ideas festivals, corporate stages, and thought leadership events, appealing to anyone grappling with what it means to be human in an age of AI. They can be tailored for tech companies and product teams, HR and wellbeing leads, data governance and legal teams, healthcare and end-of-life organisations, and leaders thinking about ethics, identity, and innovation. Elaine also delivers executive briefings, policy workshops, and the acclaimed Design Your Digital Afterlife workshop — as experienced by Pullman Hotels & Resorts.