The Miami News Staff Contributor
Published: July 21st, 2025
LAS VEGAS — In a city known for spectacle, risk, and reinvention, a quiet technological revolution is unfolding behind the scenes of the entertainment industry — not on a stage or set, but inside a cutting-edge AI platform called Cast-GPT™.
Developed by the founders of VIP Ignite, Alycia Kaback and Michael Fomkin, Cast-GPT™ is being hailed as the first artificial intelligence–powered casting assistant built specifically to serve talent, not replace them. It doesn’t just list roles — it interprets them. It doesn’t just scan résumés — it strategizes careers.
And in an industry built on dreams, it’s finally giving talent the one thing they’ve never had: clarity.
The Chaos Beneath the Spotlight
Every year, tens of thousands of aspiring actors, models, and performers enter the entertainment industry. Most never make it beyond a sea of unanswered emails, dead-end submissions, and predatory scams. Despite the explosion of content on streaming platforms and social media, the traditional casting process remains stubbornly opaque.
“There’s never been more opportunity,” said Alycia Kaback, co-founder of VIP Ignite, “but the infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Talent are still guessing what they’re right for — or worse, being misled. We built Cast-GPT™ to change that.”
Unlike job boards or talent databases, Cast-GPT™ doesn’t offer a list of open roles. Instead, it uses artificial intelligence to analyze an individual’s brand, visual identity, voice, market trends, and type, and then advises them like a manager would — in seconds.
Born in Las Vegas, Built for Global Impact
VIP Ignite, long recognized for launching emerging talent into major campaigns, TV shows, and feature films, quietly began development on Cast-GPT™ in late 2023. Working from their headquarters in Las Vegas, the team began assembling a task force of AI consultants, entertainment professionals, and software engineers.
At the center of the build was Michael Fomkin, who, despite being best known for his production and talent work, proved to be the platform’s secret weapon in AI.
“Michael is a genius in systems design,” said one AI consultant who worked on the project. “He understands not just entertainment but how human decision-making can be modeled, improved, and scaled. That’s not something you can teach — that’s intuition, pattern recognition, and deep behavioral insight.”
Fomkin worked with AI researchers who previously consulted for Fortune 100 companies and emerging generative startups. Their collective mission: to create an AI that could reason like a casting director, protect like a manager, and coach like a mentor.
What Cast-GPT™ Does
Unlike chatbots or résumé scanners, Cast-GPT™ is a contextual intelligence platform trained on proprietary entertainment data, including:
- Thousands of real casting breakdowns
- Visual cues from successful headshots and self-tapes
- Emotional tone analysis from scripts and roles
- VIP Ignite’s 20-year archive of talent profiles and outcomes
- Market demand patterns from SAG-AFTRA, commercials, streaming, and print
When a user uploads their photos, résumé, and reel, the AI responds like a personalized career strategist:
- “Here’s what you’re most likely to book.”
- “Here’s how your headshot is coming across to casting.”
- “Here are five current roles that match your type, tone, and region.”
- “This casting looks risky — here’s why.”
This is possible because the underlying AI doesn’t just understand data — it understands entertainment-specific nuance.
“Most people think AI is about speed,” said Fomkin. “We built Cast-GPT™ for precision. It knows the difference between ‘girl-next-door with edge’ and ‘quirky, lovable misfit.’ Those are two different humans. Two different markets. Two different strategies.”
Fighting Back Against Scams
Cast-GPT™ does more than coach. It also protects.
The entertainment industry has long been plagued by scam agencies, bait-and-switch photoshoots, and fake casting calls. VIP Ignite, known for speaking out against these unethical practices, made safety a core feature of the tool.
Using AI-powered risk models, Cast-GPT™ detects language patterns, unverifiable companies, suspicious domain names, and coercive tactics. The system automatically flags anything that resembles a scam — and it explains why it’s suspicious.
“It’s like fraud detection for your acting career,” said Kaback. “We’ve seen people lose thousands of dollars and years of their lives chasing fake opportunities. This stops that before it starts.”
The scam-detection module is being hailed by industry veterans as one of the most overdue innovations in modern casting.
The Tech Under the Hood
Technically speaking, Cast-GPT™ is built on a domain-specific adaptation of transformer architecture, the same foundational technology used in OpenAI’s GPT models — but with heavy customizations.
While most generative AIs are trained on general internet data, Cast-GPT™ is tuned with entertainment-industry-specific embeddings, such as:
- Headshot segmentation and aesthetic analysis
- Typecasting correlation modeling
- Tone matching from script to talent
- Archetype recognition across genres and networks
- Submission-to-booking outcome data
It’s not just language-based. It uses computer vision to evaluate photographs and tapes, audio modeling to assess vocal tone, and behavioral inference engines to help talent make strategic decisions over time.
And unlike “black box” AI tools, Cast-GPT™ shows its work. It explains its recommendations, offering transparency and teachability in every interaction.
$2.2 Million Investment Into the Future
To continue scaling the platform and supporting new features, VIP Ignite has committed $2.2 million in AI software development over the next 24 months. This includes building:
- A fully functional mobile app with voice interaction
- A casting director dashboard with AI-based shortlisting
- AR-based audition training tools
- Video analysis for emotional range detection
- Integration with union-compliant digital submissions
“This is a long-term investment in infrastructure,” said Kaback. “We’re not just creating tools for our own ecosystem. We’re creating tools for the future of talent management and casting globally.”
A New Kind of Manager
Fomkin refers to Cast-GPT™ not as a tool, but as a co-pilot.
“If you’re a serious actor or model, you already know this industry is about timing, clarity, and relationships,” he said. “Cast-GPT™ gives you that clarity 24/7. And it doesn’t forget what you told it last week.”
The AI learns from each interaction. If a talent begins submitting for comedic roles and starts booking them, Cast-GPT™ adapts its suggestions. If the talent expresses interest in pivoting to dramatic features, the system introduces new strategies and performance gaps to fill.
This makes Cast-GPT™ not just intelligent, but career-aware — an AI that evolves with its user.
Not a Replacement — a Revolution
Critics often voice concerns about AI replacing human professionals in entertainment. Fomkin is quick to reject that premise.
“Cast-GPT™ doesn’t replace casting directors,” he says. “It gets the right talent in the right rooms faster — and more prepared. That helps casting directors. It helps talent. It helps everyone.”
Kaback agrees: “This isn’t artificial. This is augmented intelligence. It gives talent the confidence of being guided — with the speed of technology and the heart of a coach.”
Conclusion: Where Dreams Meet Data
In a world of deepfakes, false promises, and AI hype, Cast-GPT™ offers something rare — real value, real integrity, and real impact.
It’s not just an app. It’s a movement. A shift away from secrecy and guesswork, toward transparency, safety, and empowerment.
As thousands of users log in across the country, receiving custom insights tailored to their goals, one thing is clear: for the first time, the casting process belongs to everyone, not just the insiders.
Born in Las Vegas. Powered by AI. Built for dreamers.
Be First to Comment