Cybever, the Sunnyvale and West Hollywood-based AI startup known for its AI 3D world generation, is no longer a technology vendor. The company announced it is rebranding as Utopai Studios. Their technology will make the impossible possible, as one of the first AI-born companies to operate as a full Hollywood film and television studio, starting with $110 million in revenue for their upcoming projects. Shen also announced independent producer Marco Weber is joining Cybever as partner and co-CEO.
Utopai co-founders, Cecilia Shen and Co-CEO and partner Marco Weber.
Cybever
All the Gen AI companies covet Hollywood connections, but no one has announced anything like this. Aesteria, which is now part of Moonvalley AI, recently announced it was producing Uncanny Valley which will be co-written and co-starring Natasha Lyonne and Brit Marling. Runway and Luma tout their Hollywood connections but there is no one in the Cinematic AI space who has announced anything like this.
Founded in 2022 by robotics veteran Cecilia Shen and CTO Jie Yang, Cybever developed tools to prompt complex 3D environments into existence. The company pitched itself as a bridge between the unpredictability of generative AI and the precision required by professional creators. Shen’s background at Google X, where she worked on robotics for agriculture, shaped her conviction that structured 3D was the key to both digital worlds and robotics.
Shen has long been skeptical of selling AI as a commodity service, even when it was still part of the plan. “If you’re just providing tools to Hollywood, you become part of their crew, and you don’t capture the real value,” she told me on the AIXR Podcast earlier this year. The rebrand is her answer: a full-fledged studio with a slate of projects already presold into international markets.
Utopai launches with two flagship productions. The first is Cortés, written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nicholas Kazan. The historical epic, long considered unfilmable because of its scale and cost, will be released in two 100-minute parts. Co-CEO Weber is producing with Kazan, with production designer Kirk Petruccelli directing.
Despite the praise for the screenplay from studio executives and producers, Kazan couldn’t find partner willing to take on Cortés epic scope. “It was always impossible: too big, too expensive, just always ‘too,’” he said. Utopai’s AI-driven previz-to-video pipeline, which turns 3D layouts into final-quality shots, now make the economics viable.
Nicholas Kazan during NATO Showest annual theatre owners convention at Ballys Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. (Photo by Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
The second project is Project Space, an eight-episode sci-fi series described as Top Gun meets War of the Worlds. Written by Vanessa Coifman and Martin Weisz, with Weisz directing, it has already secured deals in Europe.
Combined with Cortés, Utopai has already booked roughly $110 million in revenue across global territories. That number is unmatched by other AI studios and puts Utopai into the ranks of serious Hollywood players before its first film premieres.
To distribute its projects, Utopai has formed a joint venture with K5 International, the sales firm behind Dances with Wolves and Horizon: An American Saga. K5 will represent all Utopai projects at MIPCOM and AFM this fall. Utopai also partnered with visualization house OPSIS, known for Game of Thrones and Captain America, to integrate its pipeline into a filmmaker-friendly workflow.
Utopai’s emergence signals a shift in how AI companies position themselves in media. Rather than selling models or APIs into the studio system, Shen is betting that the real value lies in creating and owning intellectual property. The model echoes how Pixar once turned its graphics tools into storytelling engines.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2025/08/26/cybever-rebrands-as-utopai-studios-with-110-million-in-revenue-and-a-hollywood-slate/
