A Mark Cuban-backed AI startup is helping families turn conversations with their elderly relatives into lasting memories
Charlie Greene, the cofounder and CEO of Remento, first learned about the importance of recording memories when his father, Don Greene, died during the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11.
A 10-year-old boy at the time of the terrorist attack, which resulted in his father’s plane crashing in Shanksville, Penn., the now 34-year-old Greene mostly has a collection of old home videos to remember him by.
So when his mother Claudette, 74, was diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer, he quickly acted to record her memories. With the intention of conducting an oral history interview, Greene searched “Questions to ask a parent,” which Google morbidly autocompleted with “before they die.”
When he started asking her the questions like “How did you get to elementary school as a kid,” she lit up, surprised he was interested at all.
“The thing that blew me away about that experience was how unmorbid it felt,” he said.
Claudette is in remission, but her battle with cancer still left Greene “unhealthily fixated” on the idea of how to best preserve loved ones’ memories. In October 2023, he launched Remento, which sends older “storytellers” a weekly text or email reminder prompting them to respond to photos or questions chosen in advance by their family members, such as, “What was the hardest thing you had to overcome as a child?”
After gathering a maximum of a year’s worth of responses, the AI converts the raw transcript into a naturally flowing narrative that goes into a physical book complete with images and QR codes linking the text to the original recordings.
Last year, Greene secured a $300,000 investment from billionaire Mark Cuban during an episode of Shark Tank in exchange for a 10% stake in his company. He has raised a total of $4.3 million since launch.
Greene said he understands some people’s skepticism of AI, because “A lot of what AI is proposing to the world doesn’t feel actually that good to our lives right now.”
Widespread anxiety about AI replacing human workers as well as concerns over its environmental footprint have contributed to some people’s increasing skepticism toward the technology. A March study of more than 3,000 people by the nonprofit Jobs For the Future found that 38% of respondents said AI was doing more harm than good, while less than half said the technology was a net positive.
Yet Greene hasn’t gotten as much pushback about the company’s use of AI as he had expected because Remento is using the technology to provide its users with something deeply personal, he added.
“Investors want to invest in AI, because it’s an exciting place to be. But I think what we’re experiencing is people have problems and they want them solved, and they want consumer technology to be able to solve those problems,” he said.
Kindred Tales, a rival platform cofounded by Nick Hern and his wife Rebecca Hern, has seen a similar trend with their customers. The company has both AI and non-AI versions of its product.
While the non-AI version requires users to type out their responses to weekly prompts, the AI version helps by providing speech-to-text transcription and some light editing. It can also write a first draft of the interviewee’s story, if they want.
Before 2025, just over half of the company’s customers chose the AI version, but that number jumped to 80% after 2025.
“Customers increasingly see AI as a meaningful part of the storytelling experience, not just an extra,” Nick Hern told Fortune.
Part of the reason is that the company’s AI chatbot, called “Ali,” gives the interview process a conversational feel by teasing more out of users with follow-up questions crafted to their responses.
AI has helped Kern, who also works full time for Thomson Reuters, run the company as well. He said he has used the technology to help filter emails, as well as slowly replace freelancers that he previously hired to help him craft marketing and social content.
Greene, for his part, said the strength of AI goes beyond random ChatGPT searches. While he acknowledges the technology has its issues, it has allowed Remento’s customers’, as well as himself, to record moments with family members that are invaluable.
“AI in our company is being used to get people to do things that they’ve always wanted to do but haven’t been able to, and to make that experience as seamless and humanlike as possible,” he said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com