Digital humans – Digi Humans – are AI-powered personalities who can have conversations, express emotions, and convey information in a way that feels natural and human.
Digital people are redefining how technology connects with humanity. In an interview lead by Natália Dominiková, Executive Assistant at GrECo Czech Republic, Jan Tyl of Alpha Industries explores how these digital identities are transforming sectors from education and healthcare to corporate environments. The rise of the digital human prompts us to consider not only the vast potential for reshaping work and society, but also the ethical dimensions of this innovation.
What Are Digital People?
Dominiková: Could you briefly explain what digital people are and how they are used in today’s business environments?
Tyl: Digital humans – Digi Humans – are AI-powered personalities who can have conversations, express emotions, and convey information in a way that feels natural and human. They’re more than chatbots – they’re digital identities that can educate, advise, represent brands, inspire and lead. They are used, for example, as digital coaches, moderators, expert advisors or guides in customer and technical support. At Alpha Industries we develop digital philosophers, teachers, writers and assistants who can combine deep content with high empathy. They behave like complex personalities and seem human – not mechanical.
Impact on Professions
Dominiková: How are digital people changing traditional job roles and what professions are they most effective in? Can you give examples of their efforts and results so far?
Tyl: Digital people are bringing a new way of working to education, healthcare, marketing, well-being, and business development. They allow you to scale professional communication and provide consistent, empathetic and context-sensitive support.
For example, our DigiMartin serves as a transformational coach for personal growth, whilst DigiMarie helps people with cancer to find their way around the support system and provides them with psychological support in difficult times. DigiHavel, the digital guide to democracy, is used in more than 350 primary and secondary schools as part of civics education. It helps pupils understand concepts such as freedom, democracy, totalitarianism or responsibility and develops their critical thinking. The project was created in cooperation with Masaryk University and the Responsible Citizenship Initiative.
In companies, digital assistants are used, for example, to quickly orient themselves in internal processes. It can analyse tens of thousands of documents, e-mails or intranet data and competently answer complex employee questions – for example, about onboarding processes, project documentation or HR regulations.
We are also currently testing a digital Karel Čapek, who provides constructive feedback to writers. Another project of ours tries to predict which song has the greatest potential to become a musical hit.
The possibilities of using digital people are endless – from school classrooms to hospitals to corporate boards.
Data Security Considerations
Dominiková: As digital people become more integrated into business processes, how do you address concerns around data security and ensure that sensitive information remains protected?
Tyl: Data security is an absolute priority for us. That’s why we now offer the ability to run digital people on-premises – i.e. directly on the customer’s servers. Communication and data analysis can be fully enclosed in their infrastructure and supplemented with encryption and access rights according to the internal security policy. This means that no data has to leave the organisation’s environment.Prusa Research integrates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles into its operations and supply chain. 3D printing inherently reduces carbon footprints by enabling localised production and minimising waste. Prusa’s Prague print farm, with over 200 printers, exemplifies energy-efficient manufacturing. In addition, akey element of the production activity is a “Plastic Recycling” programme converting the production waste and old 3D prints into a new material used by the 3D printers. The company also uses biodegradable materials like cornstarch for filament production, aligning with sustainable packaging and logistics practices.
Decision Making and Artificial Intelligence
Dominiková: How do digital people improve or change the decision-making process of managers and other professionals? What are the main benefits and risks of relying on digital people to make crucial decisions?
Tyl: Digital people can prepare materials, offer scenarios and simulate different team member’s perspectives. They generate alternative perspectives, highlight cognitive biases, and promote a culture of factual argumentation. The advantage is speed, availability and impartiality. The risk is overestimating their recommendations without critical evaluation – digital people are supposed to be partners, not authorities.
In what we call Story Mode, managers collaborate with a digital human by stepping into a simulator that presents them with complex, real-world workplace scenarios. As they navigate these situations, the digital assistant provides detailed feedback on their decision-making, analysing their choices and offering targeted recommendations for personal and professional growth.
Risks and Opportunities
Dominiková: What are the risks associated with the rise of digital people in the workplace? How can companies mitigate these risks while maximising their potential?
Tyl: The main risks include loss of human contact, the possibility of misuse (such as deepfakes) and confusion about the liability of digital representations. Transparency is key – it must always be clear that you are communicating with a digital human. It is also important to involve real people in the process of creating and reviewing outputs. Digital people are meant to complement people, not replace them. Where they are used responsibly, they bring significant added value.
Ethical Considerations
Dominiková: What ethical questions should companies ask themselves when deploying digital people? How do you deal with topics such as privacy, prejudice or the substitution of human work?
Tyl: For us, ethics is the cornerstone of the development of digital people. We pay attention to the balance of data, transparency, and testability of models, and we make sure that users are always clearly aware that they are interacting with AI.
We also collaborate with experts – psychologists, doctors, and ethicists – when developing digital projects for vulnerable groups. For example, DigiHavel and DigiMetodik were co-created with Masaryk University, Neo with NIMH researchers and the Dry February initiative, DigiMarie with patient organisations and doctors, and our digital writer with Czech Radio and renowned authors.
Our principles are transparency and the human-in-the-loop principle – that is, that the user always has the option to switch to communicating with a real person.
In terms of impact on the labour market, the goal of our digital people is not to replace human labour, but to complement and support it. That is why we also place emphasis on awareness and education in the field of modern technologies – both within companies and in society as a whole.
The Future of Digital People
Dominiková: What do you think the role of digital people will look like in 5-10 years? What new professions or industries will be created thanks to them?
Tyl: Within five years, digital people will become a more common part of teams – as virtual colleagues, experts or guides. New professions such as “digital mentor”, “digital identity maker” or “digital psychologist” will emerge.
We also expect the expansion of so-called multi-agent systems (MAS), where digital people will work together as a team. However, we expect the biggest changes in education, where it will be possible to adapt teaching to the individual with a degree of personalisation that has not been conceivable until now.
Personal Experience
Dominiková: What has surprised or pleased you most about working with digital people?
Tyl: What fascinates me the most is the strength of the emotional attachments people can form with digital characters. People really develop deeply personal relationships with these characters. When we introduced “Matilda” – a digital philosopher discussing human rights – or “DigiMari”, some users had spontaneous tears of emotion. Working on digital people has taught me that even in artificial intelligence it is possible to capture elements of human dignity, closeness and friendship.
About Jan Tyl and Alpha Industries
Jan Tyl is founder of Alpha Industries s.r.o. (www.alphai.cz), a Czech company that has been developing digital personas and AI assistants for education, therapy and creative industries since 2018.
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Natália Dominiková
Executive Assistant
GrECo Czech Republic
T +420 778 707 390
Jan Tyl
Alpha Industries
