The concept came with a child’s question, on a busy train careening through picturesque Vienna: “Siri, do you have a mummy?”

As Emil Jimenez, founder and CEO of MindBank AI, watched his young daughter interact with Apple’s digital assistant device, he was gripped.

“Imagine this moment: Everyone around us just stops what they’re doing — and seeing this little 4-year-old have a conversation with Siri,” he says, as we speak by video call.