Making the Audience Consequential: Bernie Su on the End of One-Way Storytelling

Bernie Su is genuinely unique in that most of his creative projects have been the first of their kind. First YouTube series to win a Primetime Emmy Award. The most decorated scripted drama built for Twitch that won a Webby, a Peabody, and an Emmy Award. Now he's back with Whispers — a live, AI-driven detective series where theater audiences rewrite scenes in real time by messaging with their smartphones. In this conversation, Bernie explains the difference between giving an audience choices and making them an integral character in the drama itself. He walks us through what happens between a phone prompt from the audience ("a whisper") and an animated scene appearing on screen. Finally, Bernie details why closing the feedback loop between audience and story at AI speed is the most important shift happening in entertainment right now.