SAG-AFTRA issued a statement following news at the Zurich Summit on September 27, 2025, stating that talent agents might represent Tilly Norwood. This would be a typical story of a young actor or actress breaking into the industry if it weren’t for the fact that Tilly Norwood is not real.
Tilly Norwood is an AI-generated character made by Xicoia, a division of the London-based production company Particle 6 led by Eline Van der Velden.
“When we first launched Tilly, people were like, ‘What’s that?’, and now we’re going to be announcing which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months,” said Particle 6 founder Van der Velden at the Zurich Summit.
Xicoia’s primary goal is to manage and monetize digital characters. “We believe that the next generation of cultural icons will be synthetic: stars who never tire, never age, and can interact with their fans,” said Van der Velden in a statement last week, also adding that Xicoia doesn’t intend to limit itself to a few characters. The studio’s goal is to develop a universe encompassing over 40 digital personalities.
This announcement prompted SAG-AFTRA to put out a statement condemning the “replacement of human performers by synthetics.”
The complete statement reads:
“SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.
To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation. It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion, and from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn’t solve any “problem” — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.
Additionally, signatory producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which generally require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used.”
Hollywood performers also weigh in on the synthetic performer issue, with Emily Blunt telling Variety, “Does it disappoint me? I don’t know how to quite answer it, other than to say how terrifying this is,” Blunt began. When shown an image of Norwood, she exclaimed, “No, are you serious? That’s an AI? Good Lord, we’re screwed. That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.”
Actress Melissa Barrera posted on her Instagram with the Deadline report, “Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$$”, adding “How gross, read the room.”
When asked about the usage of AI in writers’ rooms in 2023, comedian Yedoye Travis told TechCrunch, “What we do in writers’ rooms is ultimately bouncing ideas around. Even if it’s not good per se, an AI can throw together a script in however many minutes, compared to a week for human writers, and then it’s easier to edit than to write.”
Travis added, “It says to me that they’re only concerned with things being made. They’re not concerned with people being paid for things being made.”
Van der Velden has then responded to this backlash by posting on the Tilly Norwood Instagram, saying:
English (US) · 