Maybe your company won't need you in the future; a version of you powered by AI will be enough to continue your work.

This is what a Chinese company did after causing widespread controversy by using a former employee's data to create an artificial human (AI) to keep working after his resignation.

A gaming company in Shandong Province, northern China, developed a "Digital Employee" based on artificial intelligence that mimics the performance of one of its former employees after he resigned.

According to circulating reports, the company used data from the former employee, who worked as a human resources specialist, to create a virtual version capable of performing his daily tasks, including responding to inquiries, scheduling appointments, and preparing presentations and spreadsheets via Microsoft PowerPoint.

The "Digital Employee" appears within a chat interface, where it introduces itself to users by saying: “I am the digital version of a former employee… You can ask questions at any time, and I will respond based on the data and documents I have previously handled.”

According to one company employee, the model was trained using materials and data created by the employee himself during his tenure, enabling the development of a system that mimics his style of performance and interaction.

A HR department employee explained that this experiment is still in the internal testing phase, aiming to evaluate the AI's ability to handle routine and simple tasks, noting that the model has not yet reached a level of maturity suitable for widespread deployment.

She added that the company is considering developing "digital employees" with human-like interfaces in the future, capable of performing reception, guidance, and office services, as part of a broader trend toward automating administrative functions.

This experiment highlights the rapid transformations in the labor market, where companies are turning to AI to enhance operational efficiency, while also sparking broader discussions about the ethical and regulatory aspects of using employee data to build digital models that imitate them.