What if the best real-world example of data portability is hiding in plain sight inside your bank account?

In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore why open banking has become one of the clearest success stories in moving data from one platform to another. Starting with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, we look at how regulators, markets, and common technical standards helped create a system where consumers can more easily access and share their financial data.

We examine what open banking actually is, how it works through standardized APIs, and why it succeeded in places like the UK, Europe, and Brazil. We also explore the role of competition, trust, consent, and regulation, and why banking may have opened up faster than many other industries.

From there, we turn to the future. As AI agents become more capable of acting on our behalf, financial services may need to serve not just people, but AI systems that shop rates, move money, and make decisions for us. That raises deeper questions about digital identity, who should control financial data, and what kinds of trust infrastructure will be needed if AI is going to play a real role in finance.

Guests

• Eyal Sivan — General Manager, North America, Ozone API; board member, Financial Data Exchange
• Chris Skinner — Author, commentator, founder of The Finanser; author of Intelligent Bank
• David G.W. Birch — Author, advisor, and commentator on digital money and identity; author of Identity Is the New Money

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.

Who should control a digital version of you: the platform that hosts it, or you? What about after you’re dead– the platform or your estate? In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore the fast-emerging world of personal digital twins: AI versions of people built from voice, writing, behavior, and context. We look at what a digital twin actually is, how it differs from an avatar or clone, and why companies are increasingly selling these systems as productivity tools, communication tools, and ways to scale expertise.

From there, we dig into the harder questions: who owns a twin built from your data, whether the law is equipped to handle digital selves, and what happens when platforms, not people, hold custody of the models built from our lives. We also explore the line between helpful leverage and self-extraction, the risks of vendor lock-in, and why data portability may be essential if digital twins are going to remain human-centered rather than platform-controlled.

We then turn to the afterlife question: what happens to your data, likeness, and AI twin after death? That leads us into digital ghosts, legacy contacts, digital wills, and the growing need for clearer rules around posthumous AI. This is a conversation about identity, custody, agency, digital legacy, and whether the model of you is something you own, or something that ends up owning part of you.

Guests

• Julia Creet — Professor and leading international scholar of Cultural Memory Studies
• Natalie Monbiot — Founder, Virtual Human Economy
• Francesco Rulli — CEO, Querlo
• Dr. Randy McIntosh — Director, SFU Institute for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology
• Dr. Elaine Kasket — Cyberpsychologist & Chartered Counselling Psychologist
• Paul Jurcys — Copyright, data-privacy and AI attorney; Co-Founder & Chief Legal Officer, Prifina; Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley School of Law

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.

What happens when you try to leave an AI that already knows you?

In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore a new frontier in data portability: whether you can take your AI memory, context, and chat history with you when you switch models. What begins as a technical question quickly becomes something more personal. As AI tools learn our preferences, workflows, tone, and even our emotional patterns, leaving one model for another can feel less like switching software and more like a breakup.

We look at why this issue suddenly became urgent, how recent user migration between major AI platforms exposed the limits of portability, and what is actually at stake when your chatbot has accumulated months or years of context about you. Along the way, we explore the psychological side of AI attachment, the practical cost of losing workflow memory, and the growing push for model-agnostic tools that let users keep control of their own data. We also examine what can be exported today, what still cannot, and why friction and business incentives still make true portability difficult.

Guests

• Dr. Rachel Wood — Cyberpsychology Expert, Therapist
• Chris Riley — Executive Director, Data Transfer Initiative
• Sankari “Sanks” Nair — Co-founder, Recall
• Jack Spallone — Head of Product, Open Data Labs (Vana Network)

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.