How our AI works, in plain words

What a copy is

A copy is an AI that has been given a person's answers, memories, recordings and chats, and has been asked to answer the way they would. It does not think or feel, it is not the person, and it does not continue anyone's life. It is a way for a family to keep asking, built from what was shared.

What happens when you talk with a copy

1. Your message goes to our server.
2. We look up what the copy knows that fits your question: answers, memories, people, past conversations. For this we turn text into "meaning vectors" with OpenAI, so related memories can be found.
3. We send your message, the copy's description and those memories to an OpenAI language model, which writes the reply in the person's style.
4. The reply comes back to you. The copy is told to answer only from what it knows and to say when it doesn't know.

Who helps us

Our providers are contractually restricted from using your content to train their models where they offer that, and keep it only as long as they need to serve the request. The full list and legal details are in our Privacy Policy.

What happens on your phone only

• Answering by talking: your phone writes out what you said by itself when it can, and nothing is sent anywhere. Only when it can't is the short recording sent to be turned into text. Either way, the recording is not kept; only the answer you save is.
• Suggesting who's in a photo: if you turn this on, face descriptions are made and kept only on your device. They are never sent to us or anyone else.
• Face ID lock: handled entirely by your iPhone.

Voice

With Premium, a voice can be made from a person's own recordings, so their copy can speak in it and you can call it. A voice is made only for your own copy, or for someone you confirm you have consent or another legal right for. Every call is labelled as a conversation with an AI copy. Words from calls are kept in the chat so the copy remembers; the sound is kept only if you press Record. You can remove a voice at any time.

What we never do

• Use what you share to train public AI models.
• Sell your data or show you ads.
• Let a copy message people on its own, pretending to be the person.
• Claim a copy is the person, or that it replaces anyone.

Where it falls short

• It knows only what it was told. A copy with few answers knows little.
• It can be wrong. Language models sometimes guess. If a copy says something the person never would, tell it in the chat; you can also correct or delete the answer it came from.
• It doesn't grow like a person. It reflects what was shared, not who they would have become.
• It is not advice. A copy doesn't give medical, legal or financial advice, and shouldn't be relied on for it.

Grief and safety

Before the first conversation with a copy of someone who has passed away, the app explains what a copy is, gently. If someone seems to be in danger or crisis, the copy gently encourages them to reach out to people around them or to local emergency services. OtherMy is for people aged 16 and over.

How security works

Everything travels encrypted (TLS) between your phone, our server and our providers, and is encrypted at rest by our cloud provider. It is not end-to-end encrypted: our server has to read what you share to make the copy answer. Access is limited to what is needed to run the service.

Your control

• Download everything you shared, in one file: Settings → Download My Data.
• Delete any answer, memory, recording, chat or voice on its own.
• Delete your account and everything in it: Settings → Delete Account.
• If OtherMy ever closes, you hear at least 90 days before.

Questions? Write to privacy@othermy.com.