AI-Generated Tilly Norwood Drops Dreadful Music Video

Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated actress, has just dropped a music video — and the song won’t be winning any awards.

Norwood’s debut single and music video titled Take the Lead starts with the notice that the production was made by “18 real humans.” It then launches into an AI pop ballad and Norwood sings the lines: “When they talk about me, they don’t see. The human spark, the creativity. Behind the code, behind the light. I’m just a tool, but I’ve got life.”

Norwood is a fictional character created by Eline van der Velden, founder of the U.K.-based AI production studio Particle6 and its AI talent arm Xicoia. The release arrives ahead of Norwood’s planned acting debut later this year and offers an early look at the “Tillyverse,” a proposed entertainment world where AI characters “live, interact, and work.”

The four-minute video shows Norwood performing in a variety of settings, including atop London rooftops, in a bathtub, and flying through the sky on a flamingo-shaped inflatable. Pink flamingos appear throughout the video, a recurring visual motif for the character. Other scenes show Norwood entering a limousine, performing to a stadium crowd, and moving through city streets against the London skyline.

Garbled text appears in the video.

The music was generated using the AI platform Suno, while the video was produced by Particle6 using a combination of widely available AI tools and the company’s own creative process. The production also used performance capture, with van der Velden acting out Norwood’s movements and expressions.

The project follows a wave of industry attention last year after van der Velden revealed that agents had expressed interest in representing the AI character for acting roles. The prospect drew criticism from some in Hollywood, including actor Emily Blunt, who described the idea as “terrifying.”

Van der Velden has emphasized that the project is intended as an exploration of creative technology rather than a replacement for performers. “Tilly is, and has always been, a vehicle to test the creative capabilities and boundaries of AI — not take anyone’s job,” she says, per The Hollywood Reporter.

She also stresses that human involvement remains central to the process. “However, at the end of the day, even with brilliant new technology, it’s still important to stress that great AI content isn’t instant — it always takes good ideas, taste, direction, judgment and time. In other words: people remain at the heart of it.”