https://ArtsEnvoy.ai/try

AI-native agency for global issue storytelling

ArtsEnvoy.ai is an AI-native narrative production platform for global organizations. It turns policy, data, and lived experience into emotionally powerful stories, films, and campaign assets people actually care about.

Instead of generating generic AI text, ArtsEnvoy acts like a story editor and creative director, surfacing the human stakes inside complex issues.

We are building a distributed agency of AI-powered creators who use our tools to produce high-quality content for institutions.

We’re building this from Africa, with direct access to frontline creators and stories that are most authentic to the issues and where most AI systems and Western agencies can’t reach.

Our goal is to become the standard narrative layer for how global institutions turn data and policy into public engagement and culture.

Mombasa, Kenya

ArtsEnvoy.ai is live and has paying users.

We run paid pilots with youth and creative programs in Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and the U.S., where users generate films, campaigns, and narrative content using our AI storytelling platform.

We are now converting this usage into ongoing organizational subscriptions.

16 months total.
11 months full time.

We currently have 125+ enrolled users across our Youth and Africa AI Creator’s Academies, with ~70 paid. These users actively use Creative Envoy to generate poems, scripts, and story concepts about real global issues.

We are just beginning to monetize. The current cohort is paid, and we are now onboarding communications professionals and organizations for pilot subscriptions. So far, revenue has come from program-based enrollments, and we are actively converting that demand into recurring institutional contracts.

Because our revenue comes from cohort-based pilots and programs, it has been uneven month-to-month, but demand has grown steadily. Enrollment in our online academies continues to increase, particularly among youth and creatives across Africa and the Global South. Our most recent Youth AI Creator’s Academy kickoff attracted over 260 RSVPs, which we’re now converting into active users and paying customers.

This is an evolution rather than a pivot. Since my last YC application, I built and deployed Creative Envoy, a working AI storytelling agent, and ran live pilots with youth creators and communications professionals. These sessions showed strong demand for a system that turns complex global issues into emotionally powerful, shareable narratives. The product is now much more concrete, with real users, workflows, and early revenue.

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I previously participated in the Positive Planet US accelerator under an earlier concept, where I received business and startup mentorship.

ArtsEnvoy.ai is a new product built since then, with live AI agents, active users, and pilots.

We have not participated in any equity-based accelerators.

Global organizations spend billions trying to explain climate change, mobilize youth, raise money, and win public trust. But today, content is slow, agencies are expensive, and generic AI tools don’t handle nuance or risk.

The world runs on stories -but the tools to make them are broken.

I’ve spent over 20 years as a filmmaker and creative strategist working with NGOs and UN agencies on climate, health, migration, and development. Across countless campaigns, I saw the same problem: teams produce huge amounts of data and policy, but struggle to translate it into stories people actually engage with.

Communications teams know storytelling matters, but they don’t have software that can reliably turn research, reports, and lived experience into emotionally compelling narratives at scale. That’s the gap ArtsEnvoy is built to fill.

Most AI tools focus on generating content. What they miss is that for organizations working on climate, health, and social issues, the real bottleneck isn’t production - it’s translation.

The hardest part is turning data, policy, and expert language into stories that people feel and act on. That requires narrative structure, emotional stakes, and cultural context, not just better prompts.

ArtsEnvoy.ai is built around that translation layer. We treat storytelling as a workflow - character, stakes, arc, voice, audience - so institutions can reliably move from information to impact.

That’s why users say it feels less like a chatbot and more like a creative partner.

Our revenue currently comes from two sources. The first is institutional pilots and projects, where organizations pay ArtsEnvoy.ai to produce narrative content such as films, campaigns, and immersive AI storytelling experiences. This includes paid work like our AI-powered climate exhibit and custom narrative projects.

The second source is our creator academies (Africa AI Creator’s Academy and Youth AI Creator’s Academy), where students and partners pay to access our AI storytelling tools, training, and production workflows. These programs also generate story outputs that feed into our narrative production pipeline.

Over time, we expect institutional production and campaign work to become the primary revenue driver, with the academies serving as both a talent pipeline and an additional recurring revenue stream.

Lisa Russell Films, LLC, New York, USA
Arts Envoy AI Ltd, Mombasa, Kenya

99% Lisa Russell, 1% Cosmas Karisa

Lisa Russell owns 99% of ArtsEnvoy.ai and Cosmas Karisa owns 1%.
Lisa is the founder and full-time CEO. Cosmas is a local operating partner who helped with company setup and early administration in Kenya but is not involved in product development or day-to-day operations.

No

I do all of the technical work myself. That includes product design, prompt engineering, no-code and low-code systems, cloud deployment, and integrating AI models and agents into live user-facing products.

I deploy and run Creative Envoy on Google Cloud, manage the hosting and embeddings, and iterate the workflows based on real user sessions. The system is live and being used by youth creators and communications professionals.

No technical work has been done by non-founders.

We’re in an early revenue phase focused on validating usage and product-market fit rather than maximizing short-term revenue. We’ve run paid cohorts in July, October, and February with organizational partners serving youth advocates and creators, using the time between cohorts to ship new AI agents and workflows based on user feedback. We’re now converting this growing demand into subscriptions and organizational licenses.

I also considered applying with CulturePay, a commerce platform that converts everyday online shopping into cultural credits that directly support artists, allowing people to fund creators through their normal purchases instead of relying on streaming or platform payouts.

I also explored AI Open Mic, a format that turns personal stories into spoken-word poetry that can be shared or avatar-performed online or virtual open mics/poetry slams, making creative expression accessible to non-artists.

Both ideas come from the same insight behind ArtsEnvoy.ai: people create enormous cultural value, but the tools for telling, sharing, and supporting those stories haven’t caught up.

ArtsEnvoy.ai is the most direct way to solve that today.

I’ve been obsessed with Y Combinator for years - not because I come from Silicon Valley, but because I don’t.

I come from film, advocacy, and global storytelling. I’ve spent my career in UN rooms where the stakes are life, death, climate, health, and inequality - and yet the tools for telling those stories are broken. YC has been how I’ve learned to translate that world into technology.

I watch the interviews, read the Reddit threads, and follow YC companies because it’s the clearest signal I know of where the tech ecosystem is actually going. I’ve attended several YC online events and AMAs, and I’m re-applying because ArtsEnvoy.ai has gone from a lifelong obsession with narrative justice into a real product with users, pilots, and a path to scale.

I honestly can't remember.