MyHeritage Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet at RootsTech 2026

 

https://youtu.be/P5QdO_SYgoc?si=aUym21jaQV_6Vcez

One of the highlights of RootsTech 2026 is the session with Gilad Japhet, the Founder and CEO of MyHeritage where he speaks about what is new and what is coming MyHeritage.com. You can click above to see the entire presentation. 

Here is a summary of the announcements made during his presentation. 

 Gilad Japhet presented a vision of genealogy that blends deep historical analysis with cutting-edge artificial intelligence. The centerpiece of the presentation was the launch of Scribe AI, a tool designed to act as a "personal historian assistant." Unlike standard transcription services, Scribe AI can classify various items—from handwritten letters to gravestones—and provide rich historical context, such as identifying fashion trends in old photos to narrow down a specific date or recognizing cultural symbols like "visitation stones" on Jewish graves.

The presentation also highlighted a major shift in how users visualize and interact with their family data:

Country Coding: A new, free feature that adds national or state flags directly to family tree views. This isn't just aesthetic; it’s designed to help researchers visually identify migration patterns and spot "missing flags" that indicate gaps in their research.

Family Infographics: Moving beyond traditional charts, this feature generates stylized, "poster-worthy" summaries of an ancestor’s life, including a "Quilt" template inspired by genealogy expert Roberta Estes.

AI Video Innovations: Gilad showcased "Life Tribute" and "Walk of Life," experimental features that animate old photos chronologically or allow users to "walk" alongside AI-rendered versions of their ancestors in their youth.

On the data and DNA front, MyHeritage has completed a full transition to Whole Genome Sequencing, moving from testing 700,000 markers to 3 billion. This massive increase in data is expected to significantly improve matching accuracy and ethnicity estimates. Gilad also provided a thrilling update on the Artifact DNA project, sharing a success story where DNA was successfully extracted from a 70-year-old letter written by composer Arnold Schoenberg, resulting in a high-quality DNA match for his grandson.

Finally, the expansion of OldNews.com (https://www.oldnews.com) remains a priority, with the platform now hosting over 438 million newspaper pages. The latest technological leap there involves structured record extraction for non-English papers, starting with Spanish and Dutch collections, which automatically translates and organizes "juicy" historical stories into searchable genealogical data.

From the standpoint of those who also use FamilySearch.org, there is now an active link between MyHeritage.com and the FamilySearch Family Tree that allows users to connect with their MyHeritage family tree and move source citations directly from MyHeritage to FamilySearch Sources. 

This blog post used assistance from Google Gemini.