How it works
A conversation, not a questionnaire.
Your Life Interview is a spoken interview. You talk; a warm AI interviewer listens, follows your stories, and asks one question at a time.
Before you begin
You read a short consent statement and agree to be recorded. Headphones help keep the interviewer’s voice out of your recording, but they are not required. You can use a phone, tablet, or computer with a microphone.
Talking
Speak naturally. You can interrupt, go off on a tangent, or say “I’d rather not talk about that,” and the interviewer moves on. It asks about the people, places, choices, and turning points of your life, and follows up when a story deserves more.
Taking breaks
A full interview runs about three hours, which almost nobody does in one sitting. Say you are done for now, or press the break button. When you come back, the interviewer remembers what you have covered and where you stopped.
What we keep
We keep your original microphone recording, a transcript of what each of you said, and any corrections you make. You can play back, correct, download, or delete any part of it.
The roadmap
The interview follows a gentle plan so nothing important is missed:
- Childhood, family, and the places you grew up
- School, friendships, and becoming independent
- Work, ambitions, decisions, setbacks, and accomplishments
- Love, family, parenthood, and community
- Values, beliefs, habits, and the way you see the world
- Life now, hopes, advice, and anything the plan missed
The plan is a guide, not a script. You can spend an hour on one summer if that is where the stories are.
Afterwards
Your finished interview is a private archive. From it, you can choose to make a printed book, an audio keepsake, and other things. Each one receives only what you approve for it.
Who hears it
To hold the conversation, your speech is processed by OpenAI’s live voice service, with its session storage turned off. Your archive itself stays with us. The details are in our privacy policy.