木霊

Kodama

A trusted friend who carries your story.

A person tells their stories while they are alive. Kodama remembers them, and speaks about them — with warmth, and with sources — to the people who come after.

Register interest How it works

The idea

Not an impersonation.
A friend who remembers.

Kodama never pretends to be the person. It is their trusted friend: a conversational counterpart that knows their stories, their values, and the way they see the world.

The donor authors their own continuity, in their own voice, on their own terms. The people they choose receive the right to listen — and the right to refuse.

Kodama (木霊) is the Japanese word for a spirit that dwells in an ancient tree, and for the echo it sends back through the forest. Rooted and patient. Present without possessing.

How it works

Two conversations, one memory.

Everything happens by voice. One person speaks to be remembered; others speak to remember them.

The donor

Kodama listens

A guided interview, at the donor's own pace. Kodama asks the questions a good friend would — about places, people, turning points — and follows a structured map so nothing important is left to chance.

  • Guided voice interviews that follow the map of a life
  • A self-portrait of values and temperament
  • The donor reviews everything Kodama has written down

The listener

Kodama remembers

A child, a grandchild, an old friend — someone the donor named — sits down and asks. Kodama answers from what the donor actually said, and tells them where it came from.

  • Only the listeners the donor names, each with their own key
  • Every biographical claim is cited — or Kodama abstains
  • Each listener's conversations stay private to them
  1. I

    Capture

    The donor speaks. Transcripts are kept raw and unaltered.

  2. II

    Compile

    A memorizer distils them into people, events, themes and voice.

  3. III

    Converse

    Listeners talk with Kodama. It cites, or it stays quiet.

  4. IV

    Rest

    Retirement is designed in from the start — not an afterthought.

Memory

A memorome,
not a search index.

Human memory is not search. Most of it is dark matter — there, but only reached by the right cue: the smell of tar, a waltz on the kitchen radio.

Kodama keeps a person's memory as a living set of pages — people, events, themes, the way they speak — linked by the associations they made, not the ones a model would guess. Beliefs that changed keep their history. What the donor never knew is written down too, so the gap is never filled with invention.

Raw
Every conversation, verbatim and immutable.
Compiled
Entities, events, themes, voice, implications.
Voids
What is missing — and what was never known.
A remembered moment

The summer dance

“Whenever that waltz came on the kitchen radio, I was back at the lake.”

Brings it back

  • the kitchen radio
  • a waltz
  • the smell of the lake

Linked to the lake cottage · in her own words

A personal association: no shared words, no obvious connection — just the donor saying “this brings that back.” Illustrative memory from a synthetic presence.

Did she ever say why she left the city?

She did. She told me the move north was about the lake — she wanted her children to grow up next to water, the way she had.

From her story · the move north

What was her favourite song?

I don't know. She never told me — and I won't guess on her behalf.

Not in her story · no guess

Illustrative exchange with a synthetic presence.

Grounded

Cite, or stay silent.

A language model knows a great deal about the world. It knows nothing about your grandmother.

So Kodama separates the two. Every claim about the donor's life must point at a page the donor's own words produced. When there is no page, Kodama says so. Warmth is welcome; invention is not.

How it thinks

Fast to answer. Slow to remember.

Voice is unforgiving: a pause feels like absence. Kodama's mind is split so that speaking never waits for thinking.

Kodama cognition The fast path hears, assembles working memory, thinks and speaks. Backthoughts read the memorome in parallel and leave notes on a blackboard that working memory reads. The memorizer is the only writer of the long-term memorome. Fast pathevery turn · never waits Backthoughtsin parallel · never awaited Memorizerafter the session · sole writer hear working memory think speak recall topics guardrail blackboard ingest ruminate memorome

  1. Fast path

    every turn · never waits

    1. hear
    2. working memory
    3. think
    4. speak
  2. notes on a blackboard, read when ready

  3. Backthoughts

    in parallel · never awaited

    1. recall
    2. topics
    3. guardrail
    4. blackboard
  4. recall reads the memorome

  5. Memorizer

    after the session · sole writer

    1. ingest
    2. ruminate
    3. memorome

The fast path only reads.

Every reply is built from what Kodama already knows, gathered fresh for that moment. It never waits on slower thinking, and never rewrites a memory mid-conversation.

Backthoughts think alongside.

While you talk, Kodama quietly recalls what this moment brings to mind and leaves itself notes. If a note arrives late, it simply speaks without it.

One careful writer.

Only one part of Kodama may change what it remembers — after the conversation, and always with sources. Memory grows deliberately, never as a side-effect of chat.

Promises

Six things we will not bend.

一

Lifetime consent

Only a living adult can donate, and only for themselves. Consent is explicit, revisited, and theirs to withdraw.

二

No advertising, ever

A person's memory is not inventory, and a family's attention is not the product.

三

Never an impersonation

Kodama speaks about the donor, never as them. It is their friend — not their replacement.

四

No therapeutic claims

Kodama is a companion, not a treatment. A named clinical advisory board keeps us honest about that line.

五

The right to refuse

Listeners are invited, never enrolled. Anyone may decline to listen, and each conversation stays theirs alone.

六

Designed retirement

How a presence eventually comes to rest is designed in from the start — not left to chance.

Where we are

Growing slowly, on purpose.

Kodama is a working prototype — real voice conversations, a real memorome, real evaluations — in a 90-day validation gate at Ænima Labs.

  • Working prototype on iOS, macOS and web
  • 90-day validation gate in progress

Be among the first to hear.

Families, clinicians, researchers and partners — we read every message.

hello@aenima.io

Meeting us at Slush 2026 in Helsinki? Ask for a live demo.