GoKawiilI miss the time when things were more tangible. Photo albums, CDs, cameras and books. Nowadays, everything is centralized on one device or stored in the cloud, sometimes accidentally erased, not always owned by you and forever out of sight. But it’s this very technology that can also bring these memories and milestones back into focus, with a little help from AI.
The hug your younger self photo was a fun example, but I wanted to take it further and animate some old photos to turn them into a gift. It can make a good gift if you’ve got a big family birthday or a wedding anniversary coming up, and it can also be a beautiful way to keep a loved one who has passed close, if the AI is accurate enough in regenerating your moments. It could also be a special exercise to connect family members who have never met, like grandparents and their grandkids.
I came across AliveMoment, a moving-memory tool, which is essentially image-to-video technology. I chose this product for its no-prompt process, as well as its photo restoration features, because that grainy old photo look won’t fly here. AliveMoment was released in August 2025 and runs on a credit-based subscription model (more on that later).
Time for a walk down memory lane.
Getting set up
The biggest issue I had was hunting down my old photos, as many are in boxes and hard drives back in Australia, where I grew up. Most of my photos live on my Facebook profile or in the cloud, so I needed to spend some time going through what I had.
I wanted to find a photo of my grandparents, who I think about often. I always felt as though they were my parents, as they were big travelers and migrated from England to Australia. I’ve traveled to more than 50 countries and moved to America, while my parents never even had a passport.
So, my first task was to do some digging. I found a couple of cute baby photos with my siblings, as well as one with my nanna, but the quality of all three was bad.
I uploaded one of them to AliveMoment to see what options I had to improve it. I could choose between a few animation types, including adding a wave or a hug. Given this first photo was of my siblings and me, I selected “playful motion.”
AliveMoment/Screenshot by CNET
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