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Tilly Norwood is a character created using generative artificial intelligence in 2025 by Xicoia, the AI division of Particle6 Group, a production company founded by Eline Van der Velden. "AI Commissioner", the first project to feature the Norwood character, was criticised by reviewers for The Guardian, PC Gamer, and The A.V. Club. A press release that talent agencies expressed interest in representing the character attracted strong criticism from Hollywood actors and firms, prompting allegations of personality rights violations and arguments over the impact of the character on production costs in the media industry.
Norwood was created by Xicoia, which was founded in February 2025 as the artificial intelligence (AI) division of Particle6, a production company founded by Dutch actress and producer Eline Van der Velden in 2015. Van der Velden had previously starred in a satirical comedy series for BBC Three based around her character Miss Holland, whom she created in 2012 as a parody of beauty standards. She stated that the process of creating Norwood took "a long time" and compared the process to that of writers creating characters. An Instagram account under Norwood's name, with posts dating back to 6 May 2025, had gained 50,000 followers by October 3 and featured AI-generated modelling shots, selfies, and epic film scenes. Van der Velden stated in July 2025 that she intended Norwood to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman and later said that audiences were more interested in a film's story than whether its actors were real. Particle6 has claimed that using Norwood could cut production costs by 90%.
On 30 July 2025, a comedy sketch named "AI Commissioner" was released, featuring Norwood as an "actress" along with other AI-generated characters. It was created with ten AI software tools, with a script generated by ChatGPT. Stuart Heritage of The Guardian described it as technically competent but "relentlessly unfunny to watch", with "sloppily written, woodenly delivered dialogue", and that Norwood's teeth kept "blurring into a single white block." Joshua Wolens of PC Gamer wrote that Norwood's exaggerated mouth movements gave the impression "that her skeleton was about to leave her body," while William Hughes of The A.V. Club wrote that the sketch's attempt at mimicking human body and mouth movements produced "such a hideous uncanny valley effect" that it gave them "a full-on case of the screaming fantods". By October 2, the sketch had been viewed more than 700,000 times on YouTube.
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