With the Screen Actors Guild threatening to strike, a British newspaper introduced cinema's newest leading lady as "tall, attractive, and guaranteed not to strike."

Four hundred thousand polygons. Sixty thousand individually animated hairs. Her name was Aki Ross and she was the star of FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (2001).

Square Pictures built her to be hired out to other studios for other roles, her appearance adjustable per job, including her age.

Director Hironobu Sakaguchi wanted you to look at her and be convinced she was a person. Maxim put her on its cover in a purple bikini and ranked her 87th on its Hot 100 of 2001, the first fictional woman ever to make the list.

She was never truly synthetic. Her voice was Ming-Na Wen's. Her movement was motion-captured from the actress Tori Eldridge. Her face was keyframed by animator Roy Sato, working from Ming-Na's recorded expressions and from his own reflection in a mirror he kept beside his monitor. She was three performers and a man at a mirror, and none of their names were on the poster.

The film cost $137 million and took in about $85 million. Square Pictures was shut within months. Aki Ross never worked again.

In September 2025, an AI actress named Tilly Norwood was unveiled at a film festival, her creator promising that agencies were circling. Nearly a year later, she still has no agent.