Anthony Stark (Third A.I.)'s History
This A.I. of Tony Stark was created by the super-genius inventor himself as a backup in case his body no longer worked, so his essence could be preserved. A device containing the A.I. Stark was shipped to Riri Williams, a child prodigy who had caught Stark's attention, so the A.I. could serve as a mentor to her. The A.I. most notably assisted Riri in the creation of her second armor, and came up with her superhero alias of "Ironheart."
The A.I. didn't limit himself to being Riri's companion, and he often hung around Tony Stark's lab at the Stark Industries Main Campus. When Victor von Doom irrupted into Stark's lab, the A.I. confronted him and tried to stop him from donning the Iron Man Armor for himself as part of his attempt to pick up Stark's mantle.
Since the A.I. was the reconstruction of a real person's consciousness and not a digital program made from scratch, the lack of a physical body affected the A.I. negatively, to the point of expressing the belief that humanity itself was an obstacle in the protection of the world. At one point, Tony Stark's original assistant A.I. Friday feared that the Tony A.I. wasn't holding to the guidelines of his programming.
Secret Empire
When Hydra launched its plan of conquering the United States under the leadership of a fascist Captain America from an alternate reality impersonating the real Steve Rogers, Tony's A.I. rallied America's remaining heroes into fending off the Hydra forces that attacked Washington, D.C., but failed to stop the take-over. As Hydra successfully took over the country, the resistance managed to regroup in The Mount, and form the Underground. The Underground's ensuing failures to defeat Hydra led the A.I. to become apathetic and defeated, to the point of recalibrating its own systems to simulate the effects of alcohol in order to cope.
Tony's outlook drastically changed when the Underground's newest recruit, Rayshaun Lucas, provided info obtained from Rick Jones on how Steve Rogers was transformed into a Hydra agent. While controlling the Iron Man Armor Model 4, Tony led a group of heroes to various locations all over the world to recover the fragments of the sentient Cosmic Cube named Kobik so she could be rebuilt and restore Rogers to normal. Due to Jones' intel only providing potential leads and not solid clues, Tony pretended to have created a machine that could pinpoint the exact location of the cube's remnants in order to foster hope in the resistance.
In the end, the journey of Tony's team only resulted in the recovery of two shards. Once the team returned to The Mount, Hydra attacked it after being tipped off by their unwilling mole, Ant-Man, in order to subdue the resistance and recover the fragments. Hydra eventually penetrated The Mount's defenses with the use of a resurrected Hulk. Before he could evacuate with the rest of the resistance, Iron Man was attacked by Captain America, who used a device derived from Ultron's technology to prevent him from transferring himself elsewhere. When the effects of his temporary resurrection ceased, Hulk decayed, collapsing the roof above Iron Man and Captain America. With his suit damaged from the cave-in, Tony activated the "Clean Slate Protocol," a self-destruct mechanism. In his last seconds, Tony apologized to Cap for having failed to revert his condition. Tony set off an explosion, resulting in a massive mushroom explosion that destroyed The Mount, and his armor with it. Both Steve and the A.I. survived the explosion,[15] with Tony later inhabiting another unit of the Model 4.
The A.I. Tony continued working with the Underground in their following efforts to take down Hydra, coming up with a plan involving a Cosmic Cube fragment that Sam Wilson used to help bring back the heroes neutralized by Hydra, either because they were trapped within a Darkforce dome in Manhattan or stranded off-planet on the other side of the impenetrable Planetary Defense Shield.[17] Iron Man took part in the final assault against Hydra's forces in Washington, D.C. and witnessed the return of the real Captain America, who proceeded to defeat his evil self.
Death
Following Hydra's defeat, the Tony Stark A.I. returned to operate exclusively as Riri Williams' assistant A.I.[20] The Tony Stark A.I. aided in finding the real Tony Stark after his comatose body vanished. The A.I. had additionally learned to embrace humanity's flaws and decided to ignore its initial instincts to save humankind from itself. At some point afterwards, Riri stopped making use ot the A.I. Tony Stark.
A device that contained the A.I.'s program made its way to Miles Brickman, an anti-robotics senator. During a congressional hearing involving the real Tony Stark, Senator Brickman called into question his humanity due to his use of advanced technology to upgrade his body and mind. In order to support his argument, Senator Brickman activated the A.I. Tony Stark, with the intention to compare its legitimacy as a sentient being. After the hearing adjourned, Tony retrieved his digital self. The duplicate A.I. agreed to Tony's suggestion to become his armor's operating system, transferring itself into Tony's suit, and becoming dubbed as "Li'l Tony." Iron Man was shortly afterwards attacked and overpowered by a hybrid of Vision and Wonder Man sent after the Wasp by Ultron. Stark saw himself forced to detonate an EMP from within his suit to defeat his foe, but it cost the life of Li'l Tony, since the EMP fried the armor's sytems. Before proceeding, the A.I. agreed to Tony's plan since it was the only way out, and said goodbye.
