Why we built Alice around voice

When we first tested Alice, we let people type their answers. The stories came back technically correct and completely lifeless.

A woman described making her mother's recipe. Every step was there. But the way she laughed halfway through a sentence, the small pause before she said actually, she never measured anything — none of that survived the keyboard.

Voice is where personality lives. The hesitations, the warmth, the specific rhythm of how someone tells a story. You can reconstruct facts from text. You cannot reconstruct a person.

That's why Alice works the way she does. The recording is the point. The book is just a way of helping families find it.