{"id":317884,"date":"2026-03-02T12:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T12:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/317884\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T12:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T12:58:07","slug":"tilly-norwood-studio-hires-amazons-mark-whelan-for-tillyverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/317884\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilly Norwood Studio Hires Amazon’s Mark Whelan For Tillyverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTilly Norwood<\/a> studio Xicoia<\/a> has hired its \u201cleading architect of the Tillyverse\u201d to work on the \u201crapid expansion\u201d of the AI<\/a> actor. <\/p>\n

\n\tMark Whelan<\/a> joins from Amazon<\/a>\u2019s Prime Video<\/a>, where he worked across brands like The Grand Tour and Clarkson\u2019s Farm. Xicoia is describing Whelan as its first major hire.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhelan has been brought in to work on the \u201crapid expansion of AI actor Tilly Norwood and the launch of the Tillyverse, a dynamic, constantly evolving digital universe where Tilly and a new generation of AI characters will live, collaborate and build careers.\u201d He will also lead the team in the development of new proprietary AI characters for use by Xicoia and its umbrella studio Particle6, as well as oversee the creation of bespoke AI talent commissioned by third parties.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhelan led Prime Video social expansion across numerous territories and spent six years shaping EU-wide social strategy for the likes of The Grand Tour and Clarkson\u2019s Farm. During his tenure, he led on YouTube formats \u2014 one of which, De Knop, evolved into an Amazon Original. <\/p>\n

\n\tAlongside Eline van der Velden<\/a>, who runs Xicoia and Particle6, Whelan\u2019s focus will be the Tillyverse. Norwood is Xicoia\u2019s controversial AI actor creation, which has attracted the ire of<\/a> big Hollywood stars and unions. Speaking exclusively to Deadline last year, van der Velden stressed AI actors will never replace real actors<\/a> as she said the team plan to create 40 diverse characters in the AI actor world, which Whelan is now working across.<\/p>\n

\n\tVan der Velden said she and Whelan will \u201ctogether, build something entirely new.\u201d \u201cTilly Norwood isn\u2019t just an AI character \u2014 she\u2019s a personality, a brand, and a future global superstar with a compelling narrative arc,\u201d he added. \u201cMark will help us craft and shape every layer of her world, from her humour, daily life and career choices to how she interacts with fans across various platforms. It all promises to be bold, playful, a little chaotic \u2013 and impossible to ignore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhelan added: \u201cBecoming a lead architect of the Tillyverse is genuinely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. AI is evolving at breathtaking speed, and combining cutting-edge tech with ambitious creative thinking means we\u2019re not following an industry playbook at Xicoia \u2013 we are writing it. Tilly already has the momentum, an audience and the cultural spark. Now we\u2019re writing her story and building her universe. It\u2019s a huge responsibility \u2014 but an incredibly exciting one. I think the world is going to have a lot of fun watching what happens next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tilly Norwood studio Xicoia has hired its \u201cleading architect of the Tillyverse\u201d to work on the \u201crapid expansion\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,1457,343,344,37628,85,46,158482,158483,11098,4544,125,39695,158484],"class_list":{"0":"post-317884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-amazon","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-eline-van-der-velden","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-mark-whelan","16":"tag-partiel6","17":"tag-prime-video","18":"tag-techline","19":"tag-technology","20":"tag-tilly-norwood","21":"tag-xicoia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}