Never having to say goodbye for a price.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech and Stephanie Hughes.

There's an emerging industry that uses AI to build chatbots of people who've died.

Some who've lost loved ones are turning to the bots as an alternative to grief counseling.

This is part of what's known as the grief tech sector.

The BBC's Isabella Woodford has more.

Meet Lottie Hattie. Lottie lost both her parents within two months of each other.

So as a young journalist, Lottie wanted to write about it,

and in particular, to investigate this mysterious new genre of ghostbots.

My drive to try it was, I guess, in order to provide other people who might be using it with information.

She made a chatbot version for her dad and a visual talking avatar for her mum.

Hi darling, it's me, mum.

You knew me better in person.

That's Carrie, Lottie's mum.

But of course, it's not quite her.

That voice you just heard was created by one of the companies that can resurrect people

as bots using AI or artificial intelligence. The bot sort of blinks and moves slightly like she did.

That was quite alarming. Sort of the face moved in a juddery way, but it very much looked like

her and that was, that threw me off. Within the last five years, the idea of digital resurrections has gone from science fiction

to basically a reality.

Any of us from California to Beijing can sign up right now to create a digital chat version

of our loved one for as little as $10.

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