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Who are you?

Certainly, you are your tastes and preferences, talents and experience. Nobody else has your abilities, quirks, and ways of delighting the world. Much of that comes from everything that’s happened to you, and everything you’ve decided to do (and to not do) since the days you careened onto this mortal coil.

But your very existence, in some ways, is due to those who came before. You enjoy the privileges or suffer the consequences of hundreds of years of decisions and experiences of your ancestors. War and famine, immigration and partner choice — other people’s lives determined, in large ways and small, your life.

Had your parents or grandparents or great-grandparents not come to the country where you were born, you would have had a completely different set of benefits and struggles, whether that’s bountiful nutrition and career opportunities or financial and educational injustices. We end up where we start as the result of our forebears. 

Sometimes that means we’re always fascinated to know more about them, and sometimes it doesn’t occur to us until too late in the game to ask questions at all. 

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This mid-1950s photo shows Paper Mommy, sandwiched between her Bubbe (grandmother) and her mother, with her aunts flanking them. The first several times I asked about this photo, the only thing my mom shared was that she hated her haircut. Asking questions may take perseverance. 

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We recently did a deep dive into why we might want to know about our family histories and stories, and what questions can help satisfy our curiosity about things we might not even know to ask. Then, we looked at some of the major options for helping collect, organize, preserve, and share those family legacies. In case you missed those posts, you can pop over and read them here:

How to Collect, Organize, and Preserve Family Memories and History (Part 1) — The Questions

How to Collect, Organize, and Preserve Family Memories and History (Part 2) — The Methods

Today, we’re going a little further afield to see what other options may help you embrace those generational memories.

USE AI TO CREATE YOUR FAMILY LEGACY IN PRINT

Artificial Intelligence gets fancier every day. It also gets scarier.

I like when I ask ChatGPT to give me advice on how to make a blog post subject line more friendly for search engine optimization. I don’t like it when it makes things up out of whole cloth. 

For example, in 3 Simple But Powerful Productivity Resources — Right in Your Browser Tab, I talked about Goblin.Tools, a 7-in-1 AI tool to help both neurodivergent and neurotypical users with time management as well as “tone” management. On the other hand, my colleague Hazel Thornton has written about both the good and the bad in AI in posts like The AI Gold Rush.)

In this series on collecting, organizing, and preserving family memories and legacies, I wanted to include these AI solutions as opportunities, not recommendations.

Recording audio or shooting video or turning narrated stories into written chapters is a lot of work. Grandma probably isn’t up for it. You also may not have the time for it. 

AI, however, has all the time in the world. Why not give AI the chance to play the legacy-preserving version of The Jetson‘s Rosie the Robot and let it do a little of the scut work for you?

For example, if you narrate a story and the AI adds flourishes, creates chapter titles and sub-headers, and formats what you’ve spoken, you’re not wedded to it. You can always revise it. But you can’t edit a blank page, and getting something down is better than waiting until you can make it perfect.

The following are some AI-assisted options for collecting, organizing, and preserving your family stories.

Otto

Otto is an AI biographer, billing itself as a solution to create “memoirs for mere mortals.” It’s based around a simple voice interface, so you just start talking about whatever you want to share: your personal memories, family stories, life milestones, or recapped adventures.

You or your storyteller will get a prompt to answer some questions for about 10-20 minutes, making this ideal for anyone who may feel cowed by the idea of having spin a long yarn. You’re not doing an HBO stand-up special, just ten minutes of responses to weekly encouragement.

Once you’ve done your part, Otto creates transcripts of your recordings and uses artificial intelligence to develop a biography based on what has been said.

Open the app, hand the phone off to Dad, perhaps with a list of prompts (such as the ones I offered in part 1 of this series) and let Otto do the rest.

Otto creates chapters — the transcription is just the first part; the AI magic comes in almost as quickly as you can dictate. Review the chapters as Otto drafts them to ensure that everything you wanted to capture is there.

Worried AI might goof up and misunderstand something you say? The founder, Ashita Achuthan, noted that AI gave her name a few confused looks. So, Otto allows you to go into the transcripts and manually edit to ensure everything looks as it should.

The resulting biography, from what I can tell (without signing up), is digital; if you want a tangible copy, you’ll need to download the content (and perhaps combine with photos) to achieve a DIY book (such as I described in part 2 of this series).

Start with a free, 15-minute introductory trial of Otto to see how a chapter can be created with just a little chat. After that, a lifetime membership is $199, though Otto is in beta (having just launched this year), so the early bird price right now is only $99. With your lifetime membership, you get a 40-chapter biography, automatic transcripts, and access to new sessions and features.

introducing otto

it’s an app that turns your memories into memoirs

show up everyday for 10-20 min sessions
no prep needed. show up and talk
get chapters as you finish each session

751 people using otto over last 6 weeks@_buildspace pic.twitter.com/lKmZtxcCC2

— ashita achuthan (@ashitaa) July 27, 2024

Ottostory

Don’t confuse Otto with Ottostory. (Gee, how could anyone confuse the two?)

Ottostory has a three-step approach for building a biography.

• Speak into the phone and Ottostory captures the experiences. It can be a long narrative, a childhood memory, or a life event. 
• Select a tone. Depending on the individuals and the story being told, you may want a different tonal or writing style. You get to pick whether the tone should be “adventurous,” “romantic,” or “true to life.” 
• Watch your stories become a book. Once all of the tales have been narrated and AI edits the content, the story becomes a bound hardcover book, shareable with family and friends.

Ottostory has a number of features to achieve the narrative result:

Flexible Interaction

First, Ottostory offers multiple input formats. You can integrate voice, text, and document uploads. Enrich your narrative with photographs.

As mentioned, you can select different tonal styles for the writing. You can also invite family and friends to contribute guest chapters, augmenting beloved memories with multiple perspectives.

Guided Storytelling

The process starts with Ottostory’s library of 200 prompts, developed by cognitive behavior therapists, professional authors, and publishers to “elicit meaningful and heartfelt responses.” 

If you’re a writer, you may love the idea of taking all the transcriptions of Great-Grandpa’s circuitous stories and editing them into a comprehensible and comprehensive whole. If you’re not, you won’t.

Otto promises that their cutting-edge AI-powered storytelling technology will “seamlessly weave your memories into a compelling narrative” so you can take those stories, eliminate the repetition and excess, and make it make sense.

Once the individual memories are captured, Ottostory organizes the various tales along a structured timeline of key milestones or life events. Instead of a mish-mash of tales, it yields an orderly biography.

Ottostory also offers up to three hours of one-on-one coaching with professional biography writers to help craft your narrative and conquer any writing obstacles.

Customization

Users can custom-design a high-quality, premium book cover based on templates.

Once it’s all put together, you get both a bound hardcover and a digital copy of your book, enabling you to maintain a legacy copy for future generations and share your story now with loved ones wherever they are. 

Timelines to complete an entire book vary, but the FAQ says that on average, an autobiography is completed over nine months. There aren’t any time limits, so your storytellers won’t be rushed and can work at their own pace. However, Ottostory helps users stay focused by providing a personalized schedule with reminders to keep going until the book is done.

Ottostory’s pricing is definitely higher than we’ve seen with the other services. It’s $499, for which you get a 7″ x 10″ hardcover book, including fifty pages for narrative storytelling and thirty pages for vivid pictures.

Memoirist

On the opposite end of the price spectrum is Memoirist, an AI-assisted biography and memoir service.

To get started, decide whose life story will be told, whether that’s you, a family member contributing their own tales, or the family genealogist.

Then, Memoirist offers prompts to entice the storyteller to relay important memories. Unlike the other platforms we’ve looked at, Memoirist then has its Interview Helper follow up on those stories with “gentle, insightful follow-up questions to deepen the narrative.” 

Access Memoirist on your phone, tablet, or computer.

The AI takes it from there, turning the recorded “conversations” (between the storyteller and the AI) into a compelling story designed to “capture[s] the essence of your experiences.”

Once the story is massaged into final form, personalize the ensuing tangible book with various design options. You can customize the cover and final layout to reflect your preferences based on the kind of memories relayed. 

Finally, users may order bound, high-quality print copies to be shipped and shared with family and friends.

Right now, early adopters can try Memoirist for free (discounted from $10) for an initial five chapters; it also includes use of the Interview Helper’s follow-up questions and a formatted PDF of your story.

If you like Memoirist, you can upgrade to a full version for $29 (discounted 70% from the full price of $99). In addition to the assistance of the Interview Helper, you can have up to thirty chapters (up to 200 pages) in a printed, hardcover biography. You also get “do-overs” of the five initial chapters from the trial experience.

Life Story AI

Life Story AI has three approaches. If you’re with your loved one, you can ask them the Life Story AI prompt questions; they can respond using the phone app and be recorded. (They or you can also type answers on the screen.) If you aren’t present and they’re comfy with technology, “Lisa” (the AI) can prompt them to answer directly. Alternatively, sub yourself in to answer the family history questions. There’s no obligation to answer everything.

Based on answers to the general prompts, Lisa will ask customized questions. The platform gives an example of, “As an only child, what kind of fun did you have?” From there:

• Lisa sends a new question weekly, by email. You or your storyteller can answer as many questions as desired. You can add photos to make the story more robust.
• The system records and transcribes everything, and can correct grammar and spelling.
• Edit or delete text as you like, and even add your own preferred questions or stories.
• Once they (or you) have put in 10-20 hours of material, the Life Story is ready to become a book.
• You can adjust the style from the storyteller’s tone to a more literary one.
• Customize the cover of the book — choose a title and import a cover photo.
• Add up to 40 color or black-and-white photos.

The end result is a 250-page printed, soft-cover book with high-quality paper for $99. Additional books can be ordered at $35/each (plus shipping).

 

AI Life Story

AI Life Story (see what I mean about similar-sounding names?) is yet another AI-assisted book biographer. Once you sign up for an account, your storyteller gets to chat with AI Life Story’s AI interviewer. The interviewer will pose various biographical and thought-provoking questions about backgrounds, interests, and opinions. The storyteller can respond by typing or voice recording.

Once the “interview” is complete, the AI will write a “compelling” story based on the responses. In turn, you can review and edit the story to your preferences. You also have the option of uploading photos and adding comments or other answers, as well as customizing the end-result by choosing from a variety of templates. 

The collaboration yields a digital (not printed) book about your life.

There’s a free trial, after which there are two pricing options: monthly for $29/month (currently discounted for early adopters to $25/monthly) and an annual subscription of $228/year (currently discounted to $159/year. 

USE AI TO CREATE YOUR FAMILY LEGACY IN VIDEO

And now for something completely different.

Storyfile

You know William Shatner. Whether your Shatner is Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker, or Denny Crane, as spokesperson for Storyfile, he’s got thoughts on preserving video versions yourself (as if you were a holodeck character on the Enterprise) to interact with future generations.

 
After setting up an account with Storyfile, you log in and select the questions you want to use as prompts. Storyfile has 1600+ questions, grouped as related topics, crafted to encourage vibrant storytelling. Categories include topics covering family traditions, events like vacations and weddings, “favorites,” holidays, children, etc.

In addition to typical biographical questions and genealogical prompts, there are extensive questions in categories we haven’t seen on other platforms, like military memories, prompts for Holocaust survivors, memories about 9/11, questions about personal and family COVID pandemic experiences, “Pride” tales of coming out and gender identity, and more. 

The storyteller records their video responses (on a computer, tablet, or phone).

Now, you can share the interactive StoryFile via social media, email, or text. Visiting loved ones can then interact with the videos and find the answers within the StoryFile.

Think of it as a little bit like artificial intelligence setting up a Zoom call and blending it with time travel, yielding an almost sci-fi-like experience for family members to have face-to-[recorded]face interactions. 

It’s called conversational video. StoryFile sees itself as transforming one-way video into interactive two-way conversations. Imagine recording your answers and now (or later), your great-grandkids can ask your StoryFile questions. The StoryFile AI then searches the video database of what you’ve already recorded and yields the best video response, making it (mostly) like a conversation. Again, kind of like the Holodeck.

To see it in action, watch the clip of CBS Sunday Morning from this past Memorial Day, showing how the WWII Museum is using this kind of interactive technology.

StoryFile offers a free trial, with which you get 33 free questions, unlimited conversations, the ability to share to social platforms, and one-minute video answers. (Video recordings are 720p resolution.) From there, StoryFile offers three levels:

• Pay per question — For $1 per question, you can select from any of the 1600+ questions to add to the 33 from the free level. You still get unlimited conversations, the ability to share on social media and 720p video recordings, but at this level the video answers are two minutes in duration and you get the ability to re-record your answers.
• Story Pack — For a one-time $49 fee, you can select 75 unique questions to add to the initial 33 and get everything else available at the pay-per-question level.
• Premium — For a one-time $499 fee, you get access to all 1600+ questions in 70+ curated life topics, unlimited conversations, the ability to share on social platforms and re-record your answers plus you can record five-minute video answers. (I’m sure they created this option for people like Paper Doll, for whom brevity is difficult.) Additionally, the video recording quality is 1080p (high resolution) and you get unlimited storage capacity.  

USE AI TO CREATE YOUR FAMILY LEGACY IN A MIX OF MEDIA

Memory Lane

Memory Lane is a fairly new platform that seems to take AI one step beyond what we’ve seen so far. 

Users — they call them “Storytellers” just as I’ve been saying throughout this series — respond to personalized prompts from Memory Lane’s AI interviewer, recording their memories. These can be stories, family recipes, private jokes, or advice on how to raise children or interact with the world.

The AI interviewer is designed to invite a conversation, not an interrogation. Trained to be “empathetic, patient, encouraging and kind,” their AI is developed by advisors — psychologists, experts in ethics, and professional biographers — to create an interactive interviewer to draw out the best from each Storyteller. In their words, they seek to prompt, “a nostalgic trip down memory lane – and at every step we’ve built our platform with deep respect for the profoundly personal, meaningful experience that is curating your legacy.”

After the interview, recorded answers are stored “forever” in Memory Lane’s private, secure database.

As each storyteller shares more personal and family stories, the AI automatically generates a professional summary and what Memory Lane calls a life story map as a record for future generations, whom they call “the Listeners.” (Again, this starts to feel like Star Trek again, only instead of “Who Watches the Watchers,” it becomes “Who Listens to the Storytellers?”)

Memory Lane offers a 7-day free-trial, after which there are two pricing options:

• a monthly subscription is $8.99/month with unlimited storytelling, 100% personalized questions, unlimited access for the entire family as “Listeners,” narrative tracking (to eliminate errors and make certain no details fall through the cracks), and one color-printed hardcover biography. (After six months of the monthly subscription, the book is free.)
• a one-time annual subscription for $99 provides a full year of access to Memory Lane, all of the features offered with the monthly subscription, and the hardcover book is free to be printed at any time. 

Memory Lane is in beta, so some things may not be ready for prime time. (A few of the links are still wonky.) 

 

OTHER LEGACY-PRESERVING OPTIONS

As I researched traditional and AI legacy-capturing options, I found that, just as with productivity and note-taking apps, or almost anything else you can find on the web, there are numerous options without lacking clarifying information. As always, buyer beware.

Of course, you could always hire a professional biographer to speak with your beloved family members. Consider starting with Biographers International Organization (BIO).

Finally, if you and your family are just getting started with pondering how to capture family history, just start asking questions. 

Tales

Recently, an ad for a card deck/game appeared on my feed. (Yes, our AI overlords and their sneaky browser cookies are eavesdropping on my research.)

It’s called Tales, and its Life Story interview kit features 150 conversation starters, segmented into three life stages: early life, mid-life, an later life reflections. The arrangement is designed to yield a smooth conversational flow and spark memories and discussions.

Tales is available directly from the creator’s site, above, or on Amazon for $14.99.