Jack Osbourne stood by his family’s plan to build an AI avatar of his father, Ozzy Osbourne, and spoke about it on the Great Company podcast with Jamie Laing. The family wants to own and control the avatar, he said.
“By creating this digital fingerprint, you ultimately will own the digital IP and image of that person… It’s no different than saying, ‘I wanna own images of my father. I wanna own his intellectual property.'” Jack Osbourne said.
Fans did not like the idea at first. “I think people thought that, you know, next thing you know, it’s going to be Ozzy Osbourne, you know, doing freaking, you know, selling, you know, cell phones,” he added.
He blamed himself for the backlash. He said he was not “properly armed with the way to properly explain what it was.”
The project, he said, is a closed AI with no link to the internet. The family is building a database that holds only words Ozzy said or words that were written about him with care and accuracy.
“For me, it’s not about pretending he’s still alive. It’s making sure he’s never forgotten,” Jack Osbourne said earlier this year, per People Magazine. The family, he added, will keep ownership and control.
Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath singer, died at age 76 in July last year. Earlier this year, his widow, Sharon Osbourne, 74, said the family is working with Hyperreal and Proto Hologram on the avatar.
Fans will be able to talk with the avatar, and it will answer in his own voice, Sharon Osbourne said. “We’re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back,” she said at Licensing Expo 2026. She said the avatar is meant to pass down through the family and is “for our grandkids.”
Other estates are doing similar work, Jack Osbourne said. His family chose to start early. “It was our choice to go, hey, we should be out in front of this.”
