If you or a parent spent hours answering HereAfter AI's interview questions, those recordings may be some of the most precious audio your family owns. A grandmother explaining how she met your grandfather. A father telling the story he told at every Thanksgiving, in his own voice.
So before anything else in this article: make sure you have a copy of them.
We make a different kind of grief and legacy companion, so read the second half of this with that in mind. The first half is just good advice, whoever you end up with.
What we know about HereAfter AI right now
Several sites reported in 2026 that HereAfter AI is winding down, and that account holders were told to email the company to export their recordings. We weren't able to confirm that with the company directly, so treat it as a report, not a fact.
What we can see for ourselves: the HereAfter AI iPhone app was last updated in September 2023 (version 1.103), and it has a 1.5 out of 5 rating on the App Store. Whatever is happening, it isn't a product that's being actively developed.
Either way, the advice is the same. Recordings that only exist inside one company's app are one bad week away from being gone.
Step 1: Get your recordings out
Ask for an export. Email support@hereafter.ai from the address on your account. Ask for every audio recording and photo, for each person who recorded on your account, as files you can download. Keep a copy of your email and any reply.
Download what you can yourself. If your plan included downloads, sign in and save every story you can, one person at a time.
If neither works, record the playback. It's not perfect, but it works. Play each story on one device and record it on another with a voice memo app, in a quiet room, phone close to the speaker. A slightly hollow copy of their voice is far better than none. Our guide to saving a voicemail from someone who died walks through the same steps for phone audio.
Keep two copies, in two places. One in a cloud folder (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox) and one somewhere physical, like a USB stick in the drawer with the family photos. Name the folder so someone else could find it in ten years.
Step 2: Decide what you actually want next
HereAfter AI did one specific thing: it played back real recorded answers, in the person's real voice, when you asked a question. Before choosing a replacement, it helps to be clear about which part mattered to you.
- The recordings themselves. If what you want is the stories kept safe and shared with family, you may not need AI at all. A shared folder, or a printed book of the stories, does that well.
- A written family history. Storyworth and Remento are built for this. They prompt a living parent with questions and turn the answers into a printed hardcover book, for around $100 to $110.
- Something you can talk to. If what you miss is asking a question and hearing an answer in their way of speaking, you're looking for an AI companion. That's a different kind of product, with different trade-offs.
Step 3: Questions to ask any replacement
These are the questions we'd want answered, and they matter more after a company you trusted with your family's voices goes quiet:
- Can I download everything I put in, any time, as ordinary files? Not "on request." A button.
- Is it honest that it's an AI? Every time, not just in the terms.
- Is it for living people, people who have died, or both? Some only work if the person records themselves.
- Are my recordings used to train AI or sold? The answer should be no.
- What happens when I stop paying? You should keep what you built.
The options in 2026, honestly
StoryFile films a living person answering questions on video, then plays back the right clip when you ask. It now mostly works with museums, and sign-ups for its family product are currently on a waitlist.
Storyworth and Remento are the strongest choices if you want a book rather than a conversation. Neither is AI you talk to.
Afterlife.ai offers AI personas and digital legacy plans, with a free tier.
AIGriefBot (that's us) is an AI companion built from memories you share about someone. It works for a parent who is still here, through a guided interview, and for someone who has already died, from what you and your family remember.
The honest difference from HereAfter: HereAfter played back the exact recorded answers. We don't. Our companion speaks in their way, in new words, shaped by what you've told it, and it always says plainly that it's an AI recreation. Some families want exactly that. Some only want the real recordings, and that's a perfectly good choice too.
Bringing your HereAfter recordings to AIGriefBot
If you'd like to try it, your recordings are useful in two ways.
Their voice. One or two minutes of clear speech is enough to create a voice that sounds like them, so replies can be spoken aloud. A HereAfter story works well for this. You'll be asked to confirm you have the family's permission first.
Their stories. The details in those recordings (the names, the places, the way they told it) are what make a companion sound like a person rather than a generic grandparent. Add them as memories, or answer our guided questions with them.
You can start free, without a card, and download everything you've added at any time from your account, as plain files: the stories, the conversations, the photos, and the voice recording you uploaded.
Start with your first 25 messages free, or if your parent is still here, record their stories with the Legacy Package. The first eight questions are free.
And whatever you decide: get those recordings out this week.
If grief feels heavier than you can carry, you deserve real support. In the US, call or text 988. Our support page lists more.