Digital Doppelgängers: How AI Employee Clones Are Reshaping Workplace Knowledge Management

The Vanishing Expertise Problem

In today’s dynamic job market, employee turnover represents more than just staffing changes—it signifies a massive brain drain crisis that costs companies billions in lost institutional knowledge. When experienced employees depart, they take with them years of accumulated wisdom, undocumented processes, and nuanced understanding that no handbook can capture. This persistent challenge inspired former Google and IBM engineers Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia to found Viven, a startup aiming to solve what they call “the disappearing expertise problem” through artificial intelligence.

The Vanishing Expertise Problem
From Recruitment to Retention: The Eightfold Connection
Digital Twins: More Than Just Chatbots
Practical Applications and Productivity Benefits
Ethical Considerations and Implementation Challenges
The Future of Work and Institutional Memory

From Recruitment to Retention: The Eightfold Connection

The founders bring impressive credentials to their new venture, having previously built Eightfold AI, a successful talent intelligence platform. Their decades of experience developing recommendation engines and personalization algorithms revealed a critical gap in enterprise knowledge management. “We became experts at helping companies find talent,” Garg explains, “but we realized the bigger challenge was preserving the expertise of that talent once they joined—and especially when they left.”

Digital Twins: More Than Just Chatbots

Viven’s solution involves creating AI-powered digital replicas of employees that capture their unique knowledge, communication style, and problem-solving approaches. Unlike standard chatbots, these digital twins are trained on comprehensive data sources including emails, Slack conversations, Google Docs, and other workplace communications. The result is an interactive persona that can respond to queries with the same depth and nuance as the actual employee.

The technology goes beyond simple Q&A functionality. Garg describes using his own digital twin as a collaborative thinking partner that helps with everything from drafting investor communications to preparing for customer meetings and summarizing complex issues. “It’s like having a smarter version of yourself available 24/7,” he notes.

Practical Applications and Productivity Benefits

The implementation possibilities for digital twins span multiple workplace scenarios:, according to further reading

Knowledge Continuity: When employees take extended leave or depart the company, their digital twin remains accessible to colleagues
Training Acceleration: New hires can interact with digital twins of key team members to get up to speed faster
Decision Support: Employees can consult multiple digital twins when facing complex, cross-functional challenges
Meeting Preparation: Digital twins can provide background context and suggested approaches for important discussions

Ethical Considerations and Implementation Challenges

While the $35 million seed funding from investors like Khosla Ventures indicates strong market interest, Viven faces significant implementation hurdles. Privacy concerns, data security, and employee consent represent major considerations. The company must navigate questions about who owns the digital twin, how much access employers should have, and what happens to the AI replica when an employee leaves.

According to their funding announcement, Viven is developing strict privacy protocols and consent frameworks. Employees would have control over what data trains their digital twin and could potentially take their AI replica with them to new positions—raising fascinating questions about portable professional identities., as our earlier report

The Future of Work and Institutional Memory

Viven’s approach represents a fundamental shift in how organizations might preserve and leverage collective intelligence. If successful, digital twins could transform companies from organizations that constantly lose wisdom to entities that accumulate and refine knowledge indefinitely. The technology promises to make expertise persistent, scalable, and accessible in ways previously unimaginable.

As workplaces continue evolving in the AI era, solutions like Viven’s digital twins highlight both the incredible potential and complex challenges of blending human intelligence with artificial counterparts. The success of such initiatives will depend not just on technological sophistication, but on thoughtful implementation that respects both organizational needs and individual rights.