For the first time in recorded estate planning research, Americans say the most meaningful thing they will leave behind is not money. It is not property. It is not even values or lessons.

It is memories and relationships.

41% of Americans chose memories as their most important legacy — outranking financial assets (22%), property (22%), and values or lessons (23%). That data comes from Trust & Will's 2026 Estate Planning Report, one of the most comprehensive surveys of its kind.

The implications are significant — and most estate plans are not built for this reality.

What People Say vs. What They Plan For

Here is the contradiction: 41% of Americans say memories matter most. But 56% still have no estate plan at all. And among those who do have plans, almost none include a system for preserving and delivering the memories themselves.

An estate plan without a memory plan is a financial document. It distributes assets. It names executors. It protects property.

It does not capture your voice. It does not preserve the stories only you know. It does not deliver a message to your daughter on her wedding day, or to your grandchild when they turn 18.

The Digital Asset Gap

Americans now estimate an average of $191,516 in digital assets — cryptocurrency, online accounts, digital content, subscriptions, cloud storage. Yet 76% report having little or no knowledge of digital estate planning.

That gap is growing. Every year, more of a person's life — their photos, their messages, their creative work, their financial accounts — lives online. Without explicit instructions in an estate plan, families are often locked out of these assets entirely.

Worse: without instructions, a family member could legally use your emails, recordings, and social media posts to create an AI replica of you after death. Current laws do not fully protect your identity from this. A landmark February 2026 federal ruling — United States v. Heppner — redefined the legal stakes, but the gap in protection remains.

What a Memory-First Legacy Plan Looks Like

A complete legacy plan in 2026 includes:

Financial and legal layer — the traditional will, trust, beneficiary designations, power of attorney. Non-negotiable. See an estate attorney.

Digital asset layer — explicit instructions for every online account: what to preserve, what to close, who gets access, what credentials they need.

Memory layer — recorded messages, videos, letters, and instructions for the people you love. Delivered at the right moment: a graduation, a wedding, a difficult day, or simply when someone needs to hear your voice again.

The third layer is the one that 41% of Americans say matters most — and it is the one that almost no existing tool addresses.

The AI Trust Shift

30% of Americans now trust AI advice more than a human attorney for estate planning — up from 20% in 2025. Among Gen Z, that number is 46%.

This shift is real, but nuanced. When people are open to AI, they still want attorney oversight as part of the experience. Only 5% are willing to use AI for estate planning documents without any attorney review.

What this signals: people want AI to help them get started — to lower the barrier, simplify the process, and make planning feel accessible. They do not want AI to replace judgment on the decisions that matter most.

Presence Insurance™

At Eterna Legacy, we call it Presence Insurance™ — the certainty that the people you love will hear from you, even after you are gone.

Your messages. Your voice. Your stories. Stored securely, delivered automatically to the people you designate, at the moments you choose.

Because 41% of Americans are right: memories are the most important legacy. The only question is whether yours are protected.

Start your vault →