AI "actress" Tilly Norwood is getting a whole Tillyverse – and new AI castmates

Xicoia, the British AI talent studio behind the fully AI-generated "actress" Tilly Norwood, has announced a major expansion of the project. Later this year, the company plans to launch what it's calling the Tillyverse – a digital universe built around the AI character who drew widespread industry backlash when she debuted last summer. New AI characters are also in the works to populate the space alongside her.

Xicoia CEO Eline Van der Velden described the venture as a full narrative ecosystem, covering "her humour, daily life and career choices to how she interacts with fans across various platforms." To drive the expansion, the company has hired Mark Whelan from Amazon Prime Video, where he led social strategy for European productions like Clarkson's Farm and The Grand Tour. At Xicoia, Whelan will also oversee "the creation of bespoke AI talent commissioned by third parties," which the company frames as a core pillar of the emerging AI entertainment economy.

Tilly Norwood's debut last summer prompted a sharp response from SAG-AFTRA, which called the character "a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers—without permission or compensation." Despite Van der Velden's claims that agencies were interested in signing Tilly, no deal has materialized so far.

The Tillyverse news lands against a backdrop of rapid progress in AI video and image generation – from Google's Nano Banana Pro and ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 to OpenAI's Sora, plus an entirely AI-generated short film that nearly secured a national theatrical run through AMC before the chain pulled back amid criticism.

Xicoia's expansion adds another layer to upcoming contract renegotiations with both the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild, both of which are set to renegotiate their own deals in the coming months.