Sharon Osbourne appeared in high spirits on Wednesday, offering a warm smile as she departed a dental appointment in Los Angeles. The 73-year-old television personality showcased a stylish ensemble, wearing a black and white striped tracksuit beneath a sleek leather jacket, accessorized with matching black trainers and layered gold necklaces.
AI Resurrection of Ozzy Osbourne
Her cheerful demeanor follows her announcement that her late husband, Ozzy Osbourne, will be resurrected as an artificial intelligence avatar. The Black Sabbath frontman, who battled Parkinson's disease, passed away from heart failure on July 22 last year at age 76, just two weeks after a farewell concert in Birmingham.
Nearly a year after his death, the Prince of Darkness will be recreated as a hologram, allowing fans to converse and interact with a digital version of the rock star. Sharon revealed the news at a U.S. expo, stating the family has partnered with Hyperreal and Proto Hologram, companies specializing in lifelike 3D holograms.
“The things that you can do with that are just endless,” she said at Licensing Expo 2026. “You can ask the digital Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice—and the answers will be what Ozzy would have said. We’re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back. Elvis died 50 years ago, and everybody knows Elvis. I just want that for Ozzy.”
Fans in the UK and US will be able to interact with the AI recreation as early as this summer, with Sharon insisting the first stop must be Ozzy’s hometown of Birmingham. Speaking on BBC Radio WM, she said: “It’s going to go around the world, we’re going to take it around the world, but it has to be in Birmingham first.”
Technology and Detail
Sharon gushed over the avatar’s realism, noting its potential for concerts, films, or adverts. “I’ve seen the tests that they’ve done of Ozzy and you can see every pore on his face, his beard’s coming through, it’s that detailed,” she said. “You can go and talk to Ozzy and ask him anything you want and he will talk to you, you can have your photo taken with Ozzy. After you get over the tears, it’s brilliant.”
However, the announcement has divided fans, with some criticizing the decision to reanimate the rocker through AI. In response, Ozzy’s son Jack Osbourne defended the project in a YouTube livestream, insisting it would be “tasteful” and that he had discussed the idea with his father before his death.
“Here’s the thing, it’s gonna be so tasteful what we’re doing. It’s not gonna be f*****g lame. It’s really complex what we’re doing. This isn’t just like hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT,” Jack said. “This is some high-level technology that we’re going to be working with and it’s going to feel very real and it’s kind of wild how it will be utilised. It’s something that I think my dad would be into. We actually talked about it before he passed, about doing something like this.”
Digital DNA and Holographic Display
Hyperreal claims to have recreated Ozzy’s personality using patented “Digital DNA” technology. CEO Remington Scott explained that this captures “all four dimensions of a person’s identity: likeness, voice, motion, and performance character,” sourced from authenticated material curated by those closest to Ozzy. The digital avatar will interact with fans in real time, approximating Ozzy’s mannerisms, including his colourful vocabulary, with guardrails shaped by his family.
The avatar will be rendered using Proto Hologram’s 86-inch (2.18-metre) Proto Luma units, which create life-size 3D displays. Founder David Nussbaum noted, “Sharon came to this with real context: she had already seen what this technology can do. Sharon has said she sees Ozzy as the Elvis of his era. Elvis lives forever in every new medium that comes along – and so will Ozzy.”
This is not the first such project for Hyperreal and Proto Hologram. In 2025, they created a digital avatar of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, which debuted at Los Angeles Comic Con. They also brought a deceased husband back to appear at his own wake, costing 10 to 15 times the original $2,000 budget.
