By Will Swaney
AI didn’t write this, but it helps calm the noise of my thoughts and fix my poor grammar.
AI is here.
I know; this is the first you’ve heard that.
If you read it too fast, you think they are talking about your friend Albert, who goes by Al. How is Al anyway? He is good, growing by using AI.
So, we start with confusion, just like that sentence, and then fear comes next.
We can fear it, or we can ignore it and “wait and see.” OR we overhype it. It will replace everyone and everything, and we live in Terminator 2.
All of that is unhelpful.
We can cut through the noise and ask a much better question:
How can we use AI to serve people better?
For death care, that’s the conversation worth having.
If AI does its job well, and we are proper stewards, it should make us MORE human than ever before. Connection means more. Community means more. The power of presence, of one human to another, cannot be understated.
I am an AI maximalist, but I don’t want AI replacing funeral professionals. I want it removing the things that keep funeral professionals from being present.
Searching. Summarizing. Repetitive administration. Finding information. Translating complexity. Add anything else you want in your day that isn’t serving you or families to this list.
If we let machines handle more of the work around the relationship, humans can spend more time in the relationship.
Let the machines handle the outside of the spinning world, while you step into the center to meet people there. Clear and focused on who and what is in front of you.
That’s a win.
You may not think it is, but once you drop your shoulders about the weekly status report you needed to send and the three calls that just came in you couldn’t answer, I think you’ll feel differently if you’re in the right posture.
Walk In with Open Hands
What does my posture matter when embracing technology?
Families are trusting us with an incredibly important moment. We shouldn’t enter it already knowing where we want them to end up. What they want to do, what they can spend, when, where, etc.
Walk in with open hands, clear vision and a book waiting for the family’s words to be written.
Educate them and show them what’s possible. Listen intently and use technology to ask better questions.
Then, shut up and let them decide what matters.
Our job isn’t to steer them to an outcome but present the open world of possibilities for them to embrace.
It’s to earn enough trust that they allow us to guide.
AI should operate the same way.
Death care has traditionally been really good at presenting options, often through the lens of packages, products, and price. But options aren’t the same as empowerment.
Instead of beginning with “Burial or cremation?” or “Which package do you want?” start with:
“Tell me about them.”
What did they love? Who were their people? What made them laugh so hard you can still hear it? What would actually feel like them if they came to the celebration?
Then use AI, technology and professional experience to turn those answers into the vision and show the possibilities.
Don’t use AI to tell families what to choose. Use it to help them imagine what they didn’t know they could choose.
Death care is always going to be complicated. The cognitive load on the loved ones, the professionals, everyone is heavy, so clarity is key.
Grief isn’t exactly the ideal time to learn a new industry or “do your research” on your own.
AI gives us the ability to make decades of professional knowledge accessible in plain language, whenever someone is ready to ask. When they are in their moment of need, that’s incredibly powerful.
Understanding creates confidence, and that confidence creates agency.
An educated family isn’t a threat to our profession; it is exactly the family we should want to serve with all of our heart.
What About AI’s Footprint?
Good question. Also complex overall.
The point isn’t that AI has no footprint. It does. AI uses energy, and data centers use water. These are facts. We should care about that and keep demanding greater efficiency.
But death care should enter that conversation with a bit of humility.
We use gallons of embalming solution. We manufacture caskets and concrete vaults. We maintain acres of cemetery property. We operate vehicle fleets. We use energy to cremate human remains at extremely high temperatures.
Our own work has an environmental footprint.
I don’t believe you would think those things are automatically wrong because they consume resources, right?
We decided the human outcome was worth the resource.
Are we in another moment like that?
AI deserves scrutiny — so does anything new that is here to help. So do all of the practices we’ve considered normal for decades in our industry.
The best question is: What are we creating with what we consume, and how do we continually reduce the cost of creating it?
Is Using AI Somehow Cheating or Immoral?
I hear so many versions of this one, too.
So, let’s ask:
If an editor improves my writing, did they write it?
Remember spellcheck and Clippy in Microsoft? Or whiteout in your early writing?
If Google helps me find information, is the idea Google’s?
If a book changes my thinking, is my next idea, prompted from reading it, no longer mine?
If 20 years of experience shape a decision, which experience gets the credit?
We’ve always used tools to extend our thinking.
That is the point: extend and empower, not replace.
AI can have a seat at the table. It doesn’t need to sit at the head.
The judgment, accountability and humanity still belong to us. They always have, and they always should.
If those get out of balance, we should come back to:
Is the human outcome worth the resource?
Listen Better. Know When to Get Out of the Way.
Here’s where I think things get really interesting and powerful.
AI doesn’t just give us another way to talk to families.
It gives us another way to listen. It asks more of us.
What are people actually asking? Where are they confused? What language or terms don’t make sense? What do they want that we never thought to offer? Where are we creating friction to serve a family?
For the first time, we can begin listening to those signals at scale.
You cannot reproduce yourself (today at least), but this is a close second, so you can think further than ever before.
Educate. Engage. Listen. Learn. Improve.
Then do it again.
Then do it again.
Then do it again.
There should absolutely be moments when AI stops receiving a seat at the table, or its dinner service has ended.
A person takes the driver’s seat, the screen closes and we sit down across from someone else, eye to eye.
Because death care ultimately comes down to something technology cannot manufacture: Presence.
AI shouldn’t replace it. It should help us create more room AND more time for it.
That’s ultimately the future I want us to build, together.
Not AI-first death care.
People-first death care that isn’t afraid to embrace AI to go further for families.
Not the hustle culture, till 12 a.m., on-call, first-call rotations. Smarter routing. Intelligent logic educated by years of hard knocks.
Use the technology and question it. Put guardrails around it where you’re comfortable with the tools. Make it better over time; this isn’t autopilot, you’re flying the plane.
Let it educate. Let it create possibilities. Let it give our people time back.
But walk into every interaction with open hands.
Don’t decide for the family.
Give them knowledge and possibilities. Encourage them to tell us what matters. Then earn their trust to guide them wherever they decide to go.
A computer can’t take their hand or see their reflection in their eyes. That connection happens heart to heart, through clear presence.
Kick fear in the face. Keep your hands open. Embrace the future. And keep the human at the center.
About Will Swaney: Will Swaney is a product, technology and digital transformation executive focused on using AI, customer experience and practical innovation to solve complex problems. As vice president of product at Foundation Partners Group, he helps lead product strategy, digital experiences, growth and transformation within death care.
Will’s path into death care is personal. After losing both his father and brother to COVID-19, he saw an opportunity to use his technology background to make the experience better for families facing the same journey.
His career began as a musician and artist before moving into entertainment with Cirque du Soleil and Criss Angel, creating content and experiences that suspended reality for thousands of people each week and left memories that could last a lifetime. Today, the setting is very different, but the focus on thoughtfully shaping experiences people will never forget remains the same.
Will is also an entrepreneur and coffee roaster. He and his wife, Jen, founded 323 Logistics and 323 Coffee, and he later launched CaBLP and JavaFreak with Criss Angel. Outside of his corporate work, Will pastors a church in Battle Ground, Washington.
Will and Jen are raising their three-year-old son, Oliver. Across technology, entertainment, entrepreneurship, ministry and family, his focus remains simple: Create experiences that matter and use what you have to serve others well.
