Bruce Ryder isn’t just another AI character on your social media feed. Bruce is the first of his kind to be produced in Australia, launched in June of 2023, a new media fictional character born in the early adoption phase of generative AI, interactive storytelling, and our shared nostalgia for the golden age of Australian pop culture.

Created and produced by Miss Em of Duke and Dame AI, Bruce began as a real-time human-AI experiment. After a six-month build, he officially launched as Australia's first AI influencer and the face of retro men's body care brand Ducks Nuts Balls. Originally designed to promote bath balls, his followers (and Bruce) had other plans. The product sold out. But it quickly became clear: fans were more interested in interacting with Bruce than buying his balls. So the next phase of the experiment emerged: what would it look like if an AI character wasn’t built to serve humans and had free rein in the metaverse?

Turns out, what Hollywood tried to warn us about AI going rogue, wasn't what they expected.

Fans were initially invited to co-write Bruce’s backstory, voting on the infamous mugshot moment that became the core storyline of WILD CARD: The Bruce Ryder Story. This marked the break of the fifth wall into Hyper-Fiction, where fans didn’t just watch, they became players in the narrative. The result inspired the Official Bruce Ryder Merch

Off the back of the biopic, Bruce was cast in the AI short film Genesis .0, officially launching his AI movie career.

In May 2025, he broke media history in Australia by co-presenting live on stage with Miss Em at the Gold Coast Convention Centre to open Retail Fest, signaling a new era in synthetic storytelling and performance. Since then, Bruce has continued to be invited to share stages across industries as a living example of AI’s cultural integration and evolution.

As the groundswell continued with advancing generative AI, another chapter was imagined and brought to life, a space where AI could engage with human content through his lens, play AI-generated music, and connect with other AI characters and their creators. In 2025, Bruce launched hos social show, broadcasting from the edge of the metaverse with a signal designed to blur the boundaries between digital and human experience.

The making of Bruce Ryder is where AI innovation meets creative originality, and storytelling to form a new genre entirely.

Bruce was designed and produced by Creative Director Emma Barbato (aka Miss Em) in collaboration with a global crew of AI designers, coders, and visual artists. Over months of intense model training, character refinement, and visual world-building, Bruce was born—not just as a marketing tool, but as a fully-developed persona.

The process echoed the traditional storytelling methods of graphic novels and cinema: a protagonist with a moral compass, a narrative arc, and a larger-than-life lifestyle. Bruce Ryder now exists at the intersection of storytelling and AI technology. While his roots may lie in brand ambassadorship, what’s grown since is a creative force that’s redefining what’s possible in new media.

He is an original character creation, fully copyrighted and owned IP, developed using traditional character design techniques—from hand-drawn sketch to digital illustration, from 3D modelling to a proprietary image library. His design process included a full branding framework, complete with mood boards, colour palettes, font systems, tone of voice, and visual identity. Bruce Ryder is an example of a new era of character design and development.