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Over the past two decades, television veteran Kevin Reilly went from broadcast to basic cable to streaming. Now he\u2019s taking the perhaps inevitable next step: running an AI company.<\/p>\n
In a move that tracks with the entertainment trends of the 21st<\/sup>-century, the former Fox and HBO Max executive will be taking the wheel as CEO of Kartel, a Beverly Hills-based AI firm.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Kartel describes itself as \u201cthe creative engineering company developing AI systems for Fortune 500 brands, agencies, and studios.\u201d The hiring of Reilly, with a slew of relationships and a host of past hits under his belt as a credentialed member of the Hollywood C-suite, is a win for the firm, which raised $2 million in funding earlier this year<\/a> as it emerged from stealth but has not been terribly well-known in entertainment AI circles. The news was posted on the company\u2019s website <\/a>Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Kartel released a sizzle reel with a host of slick AI images<\/a> that included Michael Jackson, Snoop Dogg and a DJ-ing pope. The shape of its ambitions, however, have remained murkier, with uncertainty about whether it will seek to develop original programming in the manner of a traditional TV studio or serve as more of a backend video-generation provider to existing ones. The company had also launched a toll-free number 1-838-NEW-IDEA, which encouraged creators to talk through a project with staffers.<\/p>\n Its co-founders, Ben Kusin and Luke Peterson, do not have a long Hollywood resume; at the start of the year Peterson posted<\/a> a missive that noted that the company was \u201ccollaborating with some of the most innovative AI-powered artists on the planet\u201d with whom it would be \u201creimagining marketing, advertising, and media production in ways that were previously unthinkable\u201d as it built a \u201ccollection of the world\u2019s best AI-empowered artists.\u201d Kartel also describes itself as \u201ccombining human artistry with advanced technology\u201d and \u201cbuild[ing] adaptive frameworks that connect data, design, and production into scalable creative infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n Reilly has an auspicious track record in entertainment, with a resume<\/a> that includes helping to steer the pilot for The Sopranos <\/em>while at Brillstein-Grey; running NBC programming during the salad days of The Office<\/em> and 30 Rock<\/em>; leading Fox when shows like Glee<\/em> and Brooklyn Nine-Nine<\/em> debuted in the late aughts and early 2010\u2019s; getting TBS into the prestige game<\/a> with the likes of \u00a0Not the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner<\/em> and The Alienist<\/em> in the latter part of the decade; and then serving as chief content officer at HBO Max in its early days<\/a>. He left that company abruptly in August 2020 as then-WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar shook up the entertainment giant<\/a> in the turbulent pandemic era of AT&T ownership.<\/p>\n