The deathcare industry is shifting fast, and most of it lands directly on families dealing with a death. Here’s what we tracked in Q1 2026: the financial toll of loss, the ongoing estate admin nightmare, AI showing up as your deceased loved ones, and new data on what Americans actually want when they die.
“The broader public wants to pursue green death options but the current regulations and laws in the funeral industry do not support the will of the people.” — Caitlin Doughty, founder of The Order of the Good Death
That quote sums up the tension right now: people want change, but the system hasn’t caught up. Sound familiar? (If you’ve ever tried to close a bank account after a family member died, you know exactly what we mean.)
The Financial Side of Grief Is Rougher Than Most Families Expect
A 2025 study by Western & Southern Financial Group surveyed over 2,500 Americans. The numbers are sobering:
- 62% of Americans feel unprepared for the financial impact of losing a family member
- 51% struggled financially after a death in the family
- 39% put funeral or estate costs on credit cards
- 6 weeks average time to access a deceased person’s bank account
- $11,000–$15,000+ typical out-of-pocket costs in the first 90 days
Most families are financially blindsided. And the system—between slow banks, probate backlogs, and the sheer cost of dying—doesn’t make it easier.
The funeral industry has seen debt jump from 14% to 37% of families carrying funeral-related debt. Meanwhile, the average estate settlement takes roughly 570 hours of administrative work—more than 14 full work weeks of paperwork, phone calls, and bureaucratic runarounds—while you’re grieving.
If you’re in the middle of this right now, our complete checklist of post-death administration tasks walks through what’s actually in front of you.
What Americans Want vs. What They’re Getting
One of the most important developments in deathcare right now is new data on what Americans actually want when it comes to their own end-of-life arrangements—and how far off the industry is from providing it.
Caitlin Doughty (mortician, bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and the person behind the “Ask a Mortician” YouTube channel) has partnered with Professor Tanya Marsh at Wake Forest University School of Law on what’s become the largest annual survey of American funeral preferences. In 2025, they surveyed 1,510 adults. Here’s what stood out:
- Only about 33% ranked cremation as their first choice—even though the national cremation rate is 62%. External factors like cost, availability, and family pressure are pushing people toward cremation whether they prefer it or not.
- Over half of respondents would consider a green burial. Human composting and water cremation (alkaline hydrolysis) are gaining real traction.
- Gen Z is showing a surprising resurgence of interest in traditional casket burial—potentially reversing decades of movement toward cremation.
- Embalming—the cornerstone of funeral industry regulation—is of interest to only a minority of Americans. Most people don’t want it, but in many states the regulatory structure is still built around it.
The gap between what people want and what the funeral industry is set up to offer is growing. Doughty and Marsh’s work through The Order of the Good Death is pushing for transparency and reform, and it’s some of the most important consumer advocacy happening in this space right now.
AI Is Now Part of Death Administration—Whether You’re Ready or Not
AI isn’t just writing obituaries anymore. It’s showing up as deceased loved ones.
A growing number of startups offer what the industry calls “griefbots”—AI-generated chatbots, voice clones, or video avatars trained on a deceased person’s texts, social media posts, voice messages, and photos. Here are some real examples from the past year:
Meta’s “Forever Posting” Patent (December 2025): Meta was granted a patent for technology that would let AI take over a deceased user’s Facebook or Instagram account—responding to DMs, commenting on posts, even making new posts—indefinitely. Meta says they have “no plans to act on it,” but they patented it.
The Parkland Victim Who “Testified” (August 2025): Journalist Jim Acosta interviewed an AI avatar of Joaquin Oliver, one of the 17 victims of the 2018 Parkland school shooting. Oliver was recreated using AI so his “voice” could continue advocating for gun reform—seven years after his death.
A Murder Victim Addressed His Killer in Court (2025): An AI avatar of Chris Pelkey, an Arizona road rage victim, spoke during the sentencing phase of his killer’s trial. His sister created the avatar, which expressed forgiveness. This may be the first time AI has been used this way in a courtroom.
2wai and the Viral Grandma Ad (2025): The app 2wai launched with a viral ad showing a grandson speaking to an AI version of his deceased grandmother at every stage of his life—childhood, graduation, wedding. Emotional, technically impressive, and a genuine question about where healthy grieving ends and digital dependency begins.
What This Means for Families
We’re not here to tell you griefbots are good or bad. But families need to understand a few things:
- These bots fabricate responses. They sound like your person, but they’re not grounded in that person’s actual thoughts or values. It’s pattern-matching, not memory.
- Grief experts worry these tools can keep people stuck in the denial phase—constantly feeling the presence of someone who’s gone, so the absence is never fully processed.
- There are almost no regulations yet. Who owns the digital identity of a deceased person? Who gets to consent to creating an AI version of someone? These are open legal questions.
- Some families find genuine comfort in hearing a loved one’s voice or seeing their face again. The technology isn’t inherently harmful—it’s about how it’s used.
The Doughty-Marsh survey found that most Americans aren’t getting the end-of-life arrangements they’d actually choose for themselves. That gap applies to your digital life too. Right now, there’s nothing stopping someone from turning you into an AI chatbot after you die—unless you say otherwise. If you don’t want that, you need to put it in writing. Start with passwords, account access, what you want to happen to your social media, and whether you consent to any kind of digital recreation. Our guide to digital estate planning covers exactly how to do this.
The Administrative Burden Hasn’t Gotten Any Better
If you’ve settled an estate, you know: it’s not the grief that breaks you, it’s the paperwork. And the hold music. And the faxes. (Yes, faxes. In 2026.)
The numbers haven’t improved much:
- The average estate settlement involves contacting 60+ institutions
- Families report spending 570 hours on administrative tasks
- Only 32% of Americans have a will, leaving the majority to navigate intestacy laws—where the state decides who gets what
- Probate backlogs in major metro areas have increased 20–40% since 2020
The silver lining: there’s a growing ecosystem of tools and services designed to simplify this process. Digital estate settlement platforms, document vaults, and guided checklists are making it possible for families to handle more of this without hiring an attorney for every step. That’s why Good Grief is here.
The Rules Are Changing (Slowly)
Most funeral homes still aren’t required to post their prices online. The federal rule governing funeral pricing was written in 1984. Human composting went from illegal everywhere to legal in 12 states in just six years. Digital estate law is still a patchwork—which means your family’s access to crypto, subscriptions, and accounts depends heavily on which state you’re in.
The regulatory highlights:
- 0 → 12 states have legalized human composting since 2019. Consumer demand is outpacing regulation.
- The FTC Funeral Rule (1984) still doesn’t require online price disclosure. Doughty and The Order of the Good Death are leading the push to change that.
- Digital estate coverage is expanding via the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), but it’s inconsistent state-to-state—which is a real problem when your loved one’s accounts, crypto, or 47 streaming subscriptions are involved.
- The Centre for Death and Society’s 2026 conference theme is “Death and Power”—who controls the systems and narratives around death. That’s the one to watch for where this industry is heading.
TL;DR — What to Actually Do About It
62% of families are financially unprepared for a death. Only 32% of Americans have a will. Most people aren’t getting the end-of-life arrangements they’d choose for themselves. And AI can now post as you after you die. Here’s what to do:
Talk about money before you have to. Know where the accounts are. Know who’s paying for what. A 20-minute conversation now saves weeks of panic later.
Get a will. Without one, the state decides everything. It doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated—it just has to exist. Our guide to getting a legal will for free or cheap is a good place to start.
Say what you actually want. Cremation, green burial, donation to science—whatever it is, write it down and tell someone. The data shows most people’s wishes aren’t being followed because they never made them clear.
Lock down your digital afterlife. Make a list of accounts and passwords. Decide what happens to your social media. If you don’t want to become an AI chatbot, say so explicitly—because right now, nothing is stopping it.
Related reading
- 6 Deathcare Trends That Will Define 2026
- AI & Emerging Tech in the Death Space
- A Guide to Legacy Planning for the Digital Age
Next step
Death administration is 570 hours of work that lands on your family all at once. Good Grief gives you checklists, document storage, and a guided plan so you’re not figuring it out alone. Get started with Good Grief.
