Based on the generalized thermoelastic diffusion theory with memory-dependent derivative in both the generalized heat conduction law and the generalized diffusion law, the transient response is investigated of a half-space subjected to a thermal shock and a chemical potential shock on its bounding surface. The coupled governing equations containing time-delay factors and kernel functions, which can be chosen freely according to specific problems, are solved by the Laplace transform together with its numerical inversion. The non-dimensional temperature, chemical potential, displacement, stress, as well as concentration at different values of time, time-delay factors, and kernel functions are obtained and illustrated graphically. The results show that: all the considered variables have obvious changes with the passage of time; the thermal time-delay and kernel functions hardly influence the distributions of the non-dimensional chemical potential, modestly influence the distributions of the non-dimensional concentration, while appreciably influence the distributions of the non-dimensional temperature, displacement, and stress; the diffusion time-delay and kernel functions barely affect the distributions of the non-dimensional temperature, slightly affect the distributions of the non-dimensional concentration, while remarkably affect the distributions of the non-dimensional chemical potential, displacement and stress.