Suzanne Somers

We all knew this was coming: the leap from grief tech to full-on digital resurrection. And now it has a very real, very Hollywood face. Suzanne Somers' widower, Alan Hamel, says he has built an AI version of his late wife. Yes, that Suzanne Somers.

What Hamel says he built

• Name: "Suzanne AI Twin"
• Who: Created by Alan Hamel, Somers' husband of 55 years
• Training data: Tons of Suzanne's interviews plus the books she wrote, designed to mimic her voice, mannerisms, and thought patterns
• Demo: Hamel says he publicly showed an early version earlier this year
• Claim: He insists the finished AI looks and sounds so much like her that, side by side, he couldn't tell the difference
• Origins and purpose: According to Hamel, they started the project while she was still alive, and she approved it, hoping it would serve fans looking for health and wellness advice tied to her books

"It was Suzanne. I asked her a few questions and she answered them, and it blew me and everybody else away. When you look at the finished one next to the real Suzanne, you can't tell the difference. I have been with Suzanne for 55 years, so I know what her face looks like, and when I look at the two of them side by side, I really can't tell which one is the real and which one is the AI."

How this came together (and why it exists)

Hamel told People that the AI has been trained on a big stack of Suzanne's own words: interviews, appearances, and her books. If you're wondering whether this happened after the fact, he says no — the project started before she died in 2023, and she had a hand in it. The pitch from her side, as he tells it, was practical: give longtime readers and fans a way to keep getting her health and lifestyle advice, but in a more interactive, searchable form. He frames launching the AI now as fulfilling her wish.

The unsettling part

On a tech level, it's fascinating. On a gut level, it's... a lot. It's one thing to archive a public figure's body of work; it's another to press play on a digital version that talks back and claims near-indistinguishable realism. Hamel clearly believes in it — and says the demo already wowed people — but that doesn't erase the weirdness of interacting with a simulation of someone who is gone.

However you feel about AI stand-ins for the dead, this is where the conversation is headed: consent, ownership of a persona, and what happens when a 'legacy' becomes an active product. Hamel's stance is straightforward: she wanted it, fans might benefit, so he's building it.

Curious where you land on this. Useful tribute? Uncanny overreach? Or both at once?