CSI creator Anthony Zuiker quits pitching to launch AI true-crime app Cinemalistics
The creator of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation says his pitching days are over. Anthony E. Zuiker used a keynote at MIPCOM Cannes to unveil Cinemalistics, an AI-powered true-crime app built only from verified facts.
He opened in the Grand Auditorium on Sunday, Oct 11 with a eulogy for his old job. "My pitching days are over. That's it. I quit, starting now... The CSI guy is dead. Welcome to my autopsy," he said, according to Deadline. The appearance was billed as the first public showing of the platform.
Zuiker described Cinemalistics as "a true-crime studio that turns real events into cinematic storytelling, built only from verified facts." He also called it "the world's first real-time true-crime media platform." MIPCOM Cannes, the international television market held in Cannes, had scheduled the session as the global debut.
The app is organised around 20 tabs. They include documentary-style footage of crimes, a case-mapping archive, and blinking live-file indicators that flag new material from verified sources.
The idea is speed. Users can watch a dramatised version of a crime story within hours of it breaking, a concept Zuiker first outlined in May as a service for following unfolding crimes through video, databases and other evidence, according to Variety. The system runs on AI tools from Nvidia.
He co-founded the venture with former CAA agent David Freeman, with backing from David Carsten and his venture capital firm 5IR Funds. Zuiker told the audience he made 911 episodes of the CSI franchise, which he said reached a valuation of about $12 billion.
Zuiker has also described the project as a way to change journalism, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. In practice, it lets people follow an unfolding case through video, databases and other evidence rather than waiting for a finished documentary.
The launch sat inside MIPCOM's new Microdrama and Vertical Content programme, which focuses on short-form series made for phones. Zuiker shared top billing with Anatolii Kasianov of Holywater Tech, alongside executives from RisingJoy, RoseBerry and GammaTime.
For anyone who watched CSI, the shift is clear. Zuiker is trading cases solved in 45 minutes for open cases updated in real time.
