This week marks the public launch of Showrunner (showrunner.xyz), an AI animation tool billed as “the Netflix of AI,” which allows users to generate scenes and episodes either from scratch or utilizing existing material created by other users. The product is created by Fable, the tech start-up founded by Edward Saatchi (co-founder of Oculus Story Studios, a VR content company acquired by Facebook/Meta for $2 billion in 2014 and since shuttered) to build AI authoring tools to create interactive characters.
The launch is bolstered by an undisclosed investment by Amazon’s Alexa Fund, a VC that supports innovation in a variety of tech and entertainment fields.
The Showrunner tool has been in a closed alpha test phase with 10,000 users for the past several months, and will launch as free to use. The company intends to eventually charge $10-$20 per month to creators to obtain “credits” which allow them to create hundreds of scenes, according to Saatchi. Showrunner-generated content will be free to view and anyone can share the AI content to third party platforms. The option for creators to self-insert characters based on themselves into the shows has proved popular, the founder notes in an interview with Variety.
The public launch comes with two original “story worlds”: Exit Valley, a sitcom set in San Francisco (where Fable is based) and lampooning AI tech leaders like Elon Musk and Sam Altman; and Everything Is Fine, about a husband and wife who get in a spat at IKEA and are then transported to another world where they are separated and set out to find each other again.
Showrunner is powered by Fable’s proprietary AI model SHOW-2. A research paper on the predecessor SHOW-1 was published last year, accompanied by nine AI-generated episodes based on South Park — made without the permission of the creators, but with Saatchi’s assurance to Park County that the IP wasn’t been used commercially — which racked up 80 million-plus views. The founder added that Fable is in partnership talks with Disney and other major Hollywood IP holders about licensing deals for Showrunner.
He also noted that the SHOW model includes “guardrails” to block offensive or illegal behavior, such as copyright infringement protections, as well as in-system evaluation for proposed character and story choices. However, Saatchi admitted that the platform and GenAI in general is not operating at a point where it can construct long, multi-episode story arcs, but says it is suited for episodic formats like sitcoms and police procedurals.
Amazon Alexa Fund is the latest investor to back Showrunner, with previous infusions coming from Day One Ventures, 8VC and Greycroft.
