Ozzy Osbourne to return as "tasteful" AI-generated avatar
Ozzy Osbourne's wife Sharon, and son, Jack have revealed that plans to create a hyper-real avatar of the late Black Sabbath singer using AI technology are currently underway.
Digital companies Hyperreal — which states that it is "filling the multi-billion dollar hole in live entertainment" — and Proto Hologram are working on the technology to render the avatar, which is said to have the ability to move, perform, and have conversations with fans.
Sharon and Jack appeared at Licensing Expo 2026 in Las Vegas last week to discuss their intentions for creating a digital Ozzy, with License Global sharing a statement from Jack, "It's kind of scary how it's really very accurate. He will exist digitally as himself for as long as we have computers."
"You can ask Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice, and the answers will be what Ozzy would have said," Sharon adds. "We're going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back."
The announcement has since been met with backlash from Ozzy fans, which Jack went on to address during a Youtube Q&A on Saturday (23 May).
Jack expressed that he discussed ideas of preserving his dad's memory in this way ahead of his passing last year, explaining: "It's gonna be so tasteful what we're doing. It's not gonna be fucking lame. It's really complex what we're doing. This isn't just like hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT. This is some high-level technology that we're gonna be working with, and it's gonna feel very real, and it's kind of wild how it will be utilised."
Currently, the avatar is set to appear in America and the UK by the end of the summer, with Sharon expressing hopes for it to make its debut in Ozzy's birthplace of Birmingham.
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