Amazon Backs Showrunner’s AI Streaming Platform As It Launches Satirical Series ‘Exit Valley’

Amazon has invested in Showrunner, the San Francisco startup behind the viral South Park AI episodes, as it launches what CEO Edward Saatchi calls “the Netflix of AI.” The platform opens today with its first original show, Exit Valley, a biting animated satire of the Silicon Valley elite. While Showrunner declined to disclose the size of the Amazon investment, the backing signals growing interest in AI-native storytelling platforms that blend traditional media structure with interactive, generative features.

UX for the “Netflix” of AI.

Showrunner

At launch, Showrunner offers users the ability to generate entire television shows, create episodes of existing ones, and even insert themselves and their friends into scenes. Saatchi’s vision for the future of streaming is one where audiences don’t just watch but participate: “You will finish a show you love and start making new episodes with a few words,” he said. “You’ll be able to play within the storyworld, remix it, or be a character.”

The company’s first marquee title, Exit Valley, takes direct aim at figures like Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Framed in the style of Family Guy, the series is set in the fictional “Sim Francisco” and allows users to create their own satirical takes on current tech news. “Satire is the tool of the powerless against the powerful,” said Saatchi. “These billionaires claim AI will eliminate the need for money or work, but only after they become the richest humans to ever live. Giving people new ways to mock that hubris feels like the right use for generative media.”

Showrunner is built on Fable’s proprietary SHOW-2 model, which follows last year’s SHOW-1, used to create the viral South Park AI episodes. Those projects, developed without the involvement or permission of the original creators, drew over 80 million views and demonstrated the scale of demand for AI-generated episodic content. Now Showrunner is turning that experiment into a product. Saatchi emphasized that the platform’s direction will be “a little top down, a little bottom up”—pairing canonical, pre-authored seasons and films with tools that let users explore, remix, and expand the universe.

Saatchi is wary of the pitfalls of full user-generated storytelling, which can devolve into incoherence or mediocrity. “We’re making a canonical Season 1 of Exit Valley and a canonical film for Everything is Fine that users can then remix,” he said. “All bottom-up can lead to weak stories.” By anchoring each world in a crafted narrative, Showrunner aims to deliver structure without stifling creativity.

Unlike existing AI tools that charge flat fees or rely on enterprise licensing, Showrunner introduces a creator-first business model. The platform will operate on a credit-based subscription similar to Runway, but with one key difference: creators will earn revenue shares when others build on their IP. If someone generates a scene using a show you created, you get paid. “There’s a huge amount of revenue in the AI video space,” Saatchi said. “But surprisingly, no one has implemented a true revenue-sharing model. We think that’s going to be very attractive to the AI creator community.”

While bullish on the potential of interactive media, Saatchi admits AI-generated storytelling is currently better suited for episodic formats like sitcoms and procedurals, rather than long arcs like Game of Thrones. Still, he believes the shift is inevitable. “The Toy Story of AI isn’t just a cheaper Toy Story. It’s playable,” he said. “By the weekend, you’ll be in it.”

Showrunner is in active conversations with major studios, including Disney, about building bespoke generative models tied to existing IP. In Saatchi’s view, tomorrow’s media platforms won’t be about distribution alone. They’ll be toolkits. “Imagine a ‘Star Wars’ model run by Dave Filoni, where fans generate scenes in-universe. That’s the future of entertainment,” he said.

The service is now live in alpha at showrunner.xyz, with a waitlist reportedly over 100,000 users.