AI celebrity Bruce Ryder will make a series of appearances across the humAIn conference next week, with delegates invited to follow a trail of clues hidden throughout the event.
The interactive experience is the result of a collaboration between creative director Emma Barbato and Sydney-based multimedia artist Luke Burton, bringing together Barbato’s AI-generated celebrity and Burton’s generative AI art project ‘The Lost Futures’.
The experience will run across humAIn’s 13 and 14 October conference, with Bruce appearing on screens throughout the event.
Each appearance will contain a clue, with delegates who collect and solve them entering the running to win a prize.
The collaboration is designed to demonstrate how generative AI can be used to create participatory storytelling, rather than simply producing content for audiences to consume.
Bruce Ryder, dubbed the “Golden Playboy of the Gold Coast”, was created by Barbato, who works under the name Miss Em through her studio Duke and Dame AI.
The fictional character is an entertainer living on the Gold Coast in 1978 and was originally created as a brand ambassador for men’s grooming company Ducks Nuts in June 2023.
Bruce was later named AI Influencer of the Year at the 2025 Australian AI Festival in Melbourne.
The character has since expanded into ‘The Bruce Ryder Show’, which runs on streaming startup GenFlix. Barbato has developed technology that allows audiences to influence the experience, an approach she describes as “hyperfiction” – where audiences participate in a story and help shape its direction.
For humAIn, that concept will be brought into the physical conference environment, with delegates becoming active participants in Bruce’s story as they hunt for the clues.
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The experience will also connect with Barbato’s Day Two workshop, ‘Build Your First Interactive World’, powered by GenFlix.
The workshop will take delegates through the process of turning an idea into a blueprint for an interactive experience, including defining what audiences encounter, the choices available to them, the consequences of those choices and what the experience should remember.
No coding or technical knowledge is required.
‘The Lost Futures’ will return to humAIn after Burton staged a live installation at the 2025 conference.
