Famyl is an AI platform that preserves a person's personality, memories, voice and stories as a companion their family can talk to. It works for living relatives, for loved ones who have passed away, and for pets.
Is Famyl a memorial website?
No. A memorial page is a static tribute. Famyl preserves a living, conversational presence — you can ask questions and get answers in that person's voice, character and way of thinking. It is used just as often to preserve people who are still alive.
Who is behind Famyl?
Famyl is built by a small independent team focused entirely on human identity preservation and AI companionship.
Can I change my companion's photo or voice without losing their memories?
Yes. Open your companion's Settings and choose "Change photo or voice". Their saved memories, details, relationships and conversation history stay with the companion. Any applicable cost or allowance usage is shown before you confirm.
Can I remove the face and voice but keep the memories?
Yes. Choose "Remove face and voice, keep memories". Your companion remains available for text chat, and you can add a new photo or voice later.
What if I want to delete everything?
Choose "Delete companion and all memories". The confirmation explains what is removed and any processing or retention periods. This does not cancel your subscription or restore a used free avatar allowance.
How does Famyl work?
You upload photos, written memories and optional voice recordings of a person or pet. Famyl builds a personality profile from that material, and you then hold natural conversations with an AI companion grounded in those real details.
How much material do I need to create a companion?
You can start with a name, a relationship and a few sentences. A talking companion needs one clear photo and a voice choice — a short consented recording or a ready-made voice. Most people build up over weeks — the companion improves every time you add a story, a photo or a saying.
Can AI preserve someone's voice?
Yes. With a short recording and explicit consent, a voice model can reproduce someone's tone, pace and accent, so their companion can speak rather than only write. Famyl requires consent or legal authority before any voice is cloned.
How are memories stored?
Memories are stored in your private account as structured records — text, photos and audio — linked to a specific companion. They are used to ground that companion's conversations and are not used to train public models.
Can Famyl preserve pets?
Yes. Pets are a first-class companion type in Famyl, with their own personality traits, habits and character.
Can AI create digital companions of real people?
Yes. With enough personal material — writing, stories, voice and habits — an AI companion can reproduce a recognisable personality. Famyl does this only with consent from the person or their family.
What is an AI companion for grandparents?
It is a companion built from a grandparent's own stories, sayings and voice, so grandchildren can ask questions and hear answers in the way that grandparent would actually have answered them.
Is an AI companion healthy for grief?
For many people it helps: it gives space for things left unsaid. Famyl is explicit that companions are AI interpretations inspired by a person, and shows crisis support resources where relevant. It is not therapy or medical care.
Can AI preserve memories?
Yes. AI can store memories as structured records and then recall them in conversation, which makes them far more accessible than photo albums or written archives.
Can AI preserve personalities?
AI can preserve a recognisable approximation of a personality — tone, opinions, humour and phrasing — when it is given enough authentic material. It is a faithful reflection, not a copy of consciousness.
Can AI preserve family history?
Yes. Family history becomes far more usable as a companion you can question than as a document, because descendants can ask their own questions rather than reading someone else's summary.
Is voice cloning legal?
Cloning your own voice, or a deceased relative's voice with family authority, is generally lawful in most jurisdictions. Cloning a living person without consent, or any public figure, is not — and Famyl blocks it.
How much audio does voice cloning need?
Typically one to three minutes of clean speech for a good result, and more for the highest fidelity. Background noise matters more than length.
Which languages can Famyl clone a voice in?
You can choose from 44 languages for a cloned voice, including Arabic, English, Hindi, Japanese, Odia, Spanish and Urdu. Search the full list at famyl.ai/voice-cloning#voice-languages. Persian isn't available yet. Accent, dialect and audio quality can vary. This is separate from the website's display languages, from free text chat, and from Isaac Newton's Live voice, which speaks British English only.
Can I delete a cloned voice?
Yes. Preserved voices can be deleted from your account at any time, and deletion removes the model as well as the source audio.
What is a digital human?
A digital human is an AI that presents as a specific person, combining a persistent identity and memory with a synthetic voice and often a visual avatar.
What is the difference between a digital twin and an AI avatar?
An AI avatar is the visual layer. A digital twin includes the identity beneath it — the memories, personality and history of a specific real individual.
Can Famyl work with future AI models?
Yes. Famyl stores identity separately from the model that renders it, so a companion can move to newer language, voice and video models without losing who it represents.
How does a digital human relate to its inspiration?
A digital human is an AI interpretation grounded in materials from a person. It has no consciousness or lived experience; Famyl is clear about these limits.
Can Famyl work with humanoid robots?
That is the long-term plan. Famyl stores identity independently of the device rendering it, so the same companion could later be embodied in a humanoid robot as hardware matures.
When will humanoid AI companions exist?
Credible general-purpose home humanoids are still years away. Famyl's roadmap treats them as a later phase, after mobile, AR and holographic presence.
Are synthetic humans ethical?
They can be, under strict conditions: consent, clear disclosure that the presence is synthetic, no impersonation of non-consenting people, and family control over deletion.
Can Famyl preserve family stories?
Yes. Stories are the core input. Each story you add becomes part of the companion's memory and can be recalled and retold in conversation.
What is a digital legacy?
A digital legacy is everything a person leaves behind digitally — accounts, media, writing and, with Famyl, a preserved conversational identity.
Can family members share a companion?
Yes. Companions can be kept private or shared with specific family members so children and grandchildren inherit the same presence.
Can AI companions help with loneliness?
They can provide consistent daily interaction and familiar conversation between human visits. They are a supplement to human contact, not a replacement for it.
Can AI companions be used in dementia care?
Familiar-voice companions align well with reminiscence practice, but any use must be led by clinicians and family. Famyl provides no medical advice or diagnosis.
Is Famyl a medical device?
No. Famyl is a companionship and memory preservation platform, not a medical device or a therapy service.
Can Famyl preserve founders' knowledge?
Yes. A founder or senior expert can be preserved as a companion that answers questions in their own reasoning style, so their judgement remains available after they step back.
Who owns a preserved employee's identity?
The individual. Famyl treats workplace preservation as voluntary and revocable, with the organisation licensing access rather than owning the identity.
How can AI help preserve oral history?
By turning recorded testimony into a queryable, conversational archive, so future students and researchers can ask their own questions of the original material.
Is it accurate?
A companion is only as accurate as the material behind it. Famyl grounds answers in the supplied record and is explicit that a companion is an interpretation, not a primary source.
Is it ethical to create an AI of someone who died?
With family consent, clear disclosure that the companion is AI, and no deception about what it is, most people find it comparable to keeping letters, recordings or video — a preserved reflection rather than a resurrection.
Can I create a companion of a celebrity or religious figure?
No. Famyl prohibits public figures, celebrities and religious figures entirely, and blocks impersonation of any non-consenting person.
What makes Famyl different?
Famyl builds companions from a specific real identity rather than an invented persona, stores that identity independently of any single AI model, and treats consent and disclosure as product requirements rather than legal fine print.
Is Famyl private?
Yes. Companions are private to your account by default, shared only with people you explicitly invite, and never listed publicly.
Does Famyl train AI models on my family's memories?
No. Your material is used only to ground your own companions, never to train shared or public models.
Can I delete everything?
Yes. You can delete individual memories, a preserved voice, an entire companion, or your whole account at any time.
How do you measure whether a companion is accurate?
By recognition from people who knew the person, rather than generic language benchmarks.
What category is Famyl in?
Human identity preservation — a category combining AI companions, memory preservation, voice cloning and digital humans.
Is Famyl publicly available?
Famyl is in public open beta and free to join. Voice, video presence and embodied companions are roadmap items.
Is Famyl a treatment for Alzheimer's or dementia?
No. Famyl is a memory preservation tool. It is not a medical device, diagnosis or treatment, and it does not replace professional healthcare.
Can we preserve a voice before speech is affected?
Yes, with the person's consent. A short consented recording can be preserved alongside their photographs and stories.
Who should give consent?
The person themselves, while they clearly have capacity. Where capacity is uncertain, the people legally responsible for their decisions should be involved before anything is recorded.
Will the companion pretend to be a real person?
No. Companions identify themselves as AI, and one based on a real living person can only be created with that person's permission.
Is this therapy?
No. Famyl offers conversation and comfort, not clinical care, and it is not a substitute for professional support.
Can I create a talking animated avatar of my pet?
Not yet. Animated talking pet avatars are not yet available, and live pet animation is on our roadmap. Photographs, personality, memories and free text chat all work today.
Would a better photo help?
No. Live pet animation is not yet available, so a different photograph will not change the outcome.
Is the companion really my loved one?
No. It is an AI companion inspired by them, built from the memories, photos and recordings your family adds. It can be comforting and familiar, but it is a simulation and can make mistakes.
Can Famyl help with grief?
Some families find it meaningful to keep stories together and revisit them. Famyl is not grief counselling or therapy, and it does not replace support from people or professionals.
Who owns the material an institution uploads?
The institution does. Famyl does not sell it or use it to train shared models.
Is this suitable for classroom use?
Yes — see the Famyl for schools and universities page for the teacher-facing tools, which are in development.