How AI Digital Twins Are Revolutionizing Workplace Knowledge Retention

The Problem of Disappearing Expertise

When employees leave an organization, they take with them something invaluable: institutional knowledge. This brain drain has long plagued companies, with critical insights, processes, and relationships vanishing alongside departing team members. Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia, veterans of Google, IBM, and their previous AI recruiting venture Eightfold, recognized this persistent challenge across their decades of work in recommendation engines and personalization algorithms.

The Problem of Disappearing Expertise
Enter Viven: Preserving Knowledge Through Digital Twins
How Digital Twins Work in Practice
Funding and Future Implications
Balancing Innovation with Ethical Considerations

Enter Viven: Preserving Knowledge Through Digital Twins

Their solution comes in the form of Viven, a startup that creates AI-powered “digital twins” of employees. These sophisticated AI clones capture and preserve institutional knowledge through a ChatGPT-like interface that remains accessible even after employees have moved on. The technology, developed earlier this year, uses various data sources including email communications, Slack conversations, and Google Docs to build interactive personas that mirror actual employees’ knowledge and communication styles.

“When people leave a company,” Garg explains, “all their knowledge and experience goes away with them. We’re changing that equation.”

How Digital Twins Work in Practice

The implementation of digital twins extends far beyond simple knowledge storage. Garg personally uses his own digital twin as a brainstorming partner and for multiple practical applications:, according to according to reports

Drafting responses to investor emails
Preparing for customer meetings
Summarizing customer escalations
Providing continuity during employee absences

Perhaps most significantly, colleagues can message each other’s digital twins to obtain critical information when the actual person is on vacation, has left the company, or is otherwise unavailable. This capability represents a fundamental shift in how organizational knowledge flows and persists within companies., as detailed analysis

Funding and Future Implications

The potential of this technology has attracted significant investor interest, with Viven securing $35 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures and other investors. This substantial early investment underscores the market’s recognition of both the problem Viven addresses and the novelty of their approach.

As organizations increasingly grapple with knowledge retention in an era of frequent job transitions and remote work, digital twin technology could redefine how companies preserve and leverage their collective intelligence. The implications extend beyond mere productivity gains to fundamentally transforming how institutional memory is maintained and accessed across the enterprise.

Balancing Innovation with Ethical Considerations

While the productivity benefits are clear, the emergence of employee digital twins raises important questions about data privacy, consent, and the nature of work itself. Companies implementing such technology will need to navigate these waters carefully, establishing clear guidelines about data usage, employee participation, and the appropriate boundaries for AI representation.

The success of digital twins in the workplace will likely depend not just on technological sophistication but on thoughtful implementation that respects both organizational needs and individual rights—potentially setting new standards for how AI and human expertise coexist in modern business environments.