Particle6 launches Xicoia, an AI talent studio | what it means for AI filmmaking
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Xicoia: Particle6's AI talent studio | the essentials
Particle6 founder Eline van der Velden has introduced Xicoia, a studio focused on building and managing hyperreal digital performers for screen projects, games, brands, and social video. The first public example is Tilly Norwood, a fully developed virtual actor presented around the Zurich Summit during the Zurich Film Festival, with industry interest already reported. The pitch is simple and ambitious. Treat virtual performers as talent, not as one off effects, and give them creative direction, schedules, and business models that look familiar to producers and agencies. For filmmakers, that means a route to castable characters who can appear in previs, short form experiments, and commercial work without travel or availability conflicts. It also means new creative questions. How do you direct a performer whose presence is software and stagecraft rather than a body on set. How do you sustain audience connection when the face never tires and the voice never ages. These are production questions, not just technical ones.
Why this matters for filmmaking comes down to access, iteration, and clarity of ownership. Access improves because creators outside the usual hubs can test scenes with a believable lead who shows up on time and looks the same in every pass. Iteration improves because you can cycle through accents, wardrobe looks, and performance notes without booking windows or pickups. Ownership clarity must keep pace. Consent, likeness, and voice rights are not optional, and the paper trail should be as rigorous as any principal deal. If estates are involved, the chain of approvals has to be explicit about use cases, territories, and duration. Editors will still need human oversight for timing and emotional beats, yet a virtual lead can reduce the friction that often stalls early development. Used well, this is a way to move faster through story choices while keeping the craft where it belongs, in the hands of people who know how to shape a moment.
Xicoia’s promise is to operate more like a talent business than a tech demo. The team describes digital performers with biographies, voices, and continuing arcs that can appear across film and television, social channels, and game engines. That framing matters because it pushes the conversation from tools to outcomes. A virtual performer with a throughline can headline a promo today and return for a limited series tomorrow, without retraining the audience each time. For agencies, this becomes a question of packaging and brand safety. For producers, it is a question of whether the character feels alive across formats and whether the pipeline can deliver on schedule. For viewers, it will come down to the same thing it always does. Do I believe this person in this moment. If the answer is yes, the rest becomes a production plan.
If you are preparing to try this on a real project, start with paperwork and proof. Add a clear rider that covers training sources, model licenses, allowed uses, territories, and downstream derivatives such as trailers, games, and merchandising. Build a short internal pilot to measure audience acceptance, editorial overhead, and the real cost of finishing. Credit synthetic performers like any collaborator, and label AI contributions in end cards and marketing material so partners and viewers understand what they are seeing. Keep a living dossier with prompts, seeds, versions, and review notes so scenes can be reproduced and audited. Assign a human lead for performance direction and final cut approval. These steps are not busywork. They are how you keep the magic while staying inside the lines that protect talent, clients, and your future self in delivery.
