AMC gave a sneak peek at The Audacity, a new dark comedy set among high-rolling Silicon Valley denizens from creator Jonathan Glatzer (whose credits include Succession, Better Call Saul and Bloodline). Presented during CES, the preview cast the series as a pointed, character-driven look at the people who are developing the tech that increasingly mediates work, relationships and attention.
A Dark Comedy Situated in a Make-Believe Tech World
The Audacity is set in a made-up ecosystem — no names of corporations or marquee moguls, but it relies on familiar archetypes and problems. The cast features Billy Magnussen, Sarah Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis, Simon Helberg and Rob Corddry. Early character notes indicate that Gideon is a maladjusted genius who’s developed an AI therapy app for teenagers as he struggles to connect with his own child, turning the industry paradox of “building for others while neglecting yourself” into narrative fuel.
AMC executives pitched the show as a look at the builders who were shaping modern life.
The pretense is relevant: the industry’s ex cathedra pronouncements about AI and data collection, to say nothing of social platforms, increasingly form the guardrails for every kind of civic discourse or consumer behavior. By inventing a universe, the series can condense life events, sidestep minefields of litigation and pursue emotional truth without being handcuffed to any one headline.
What The Early Footage Seems To Indicate
Two closely cropped scenes showed at CES how tonally varied the show will be. In one, a hypervigilant founder traps an old-timey operator at lunch with an eager-beaver pitch — the story ends with an abrupt exaggeration that almost literally lets the air out of a startup’s bravado. A second boils down a father’s botched attempt to communicate with his teenage daughter — rather than make contact, he studies her pained facial expression on the way to training his AI model. [The beats are] cringe and critique both — so it looks like the show will be a back-and-forth between satire and pathos, rather than just broad parody.
That balance matters. HBO’s “Silicon Valley” demonstrated that affectionate insider comedy works, but the tech terrain has since evolved from appification to algorithmic gatekeeping. The Audacity seems to have aspirations further than office shenanigans toward the ethics and emotional aftermath of products that install themselves in family life.
Why Satire About Silicon Valley Is Still Needed
The subject has real stakes. The Pew Research Center has found that about 70% of American adults use social media, and exposure among young people is all but universal. The U.S. surgeon general has cautioned that social platforms can exacerbate risks for adolescent mental health. Similarly, the World Health Organization calls for “human oversight” of AI in health contexts (a warning that will echo any tale of automated therapy). These currents provide The Audacity with a live wire to tap: the chasm between tech’s promise to connect and the loneliness many still experience.
Regulators are also tightening scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission is bringing cases connected to misleading data practices, and European regulations like the Digital Services Act nudge platforms toward transparency and accountability. A comedy that can dramatize these pressures — without becoming a policy lecture — comes loaded with built-in relevance.
AMC’s ‘Playbook’ and the Cast Behind the Series
Glatzer’s background in corporate and family power struggles indicates a series geared toward incentives, not just punchlines. Casting decisions bolster that mission: Galifianakis and Corddry have great comic timing; Goldberg and Helberg proved they can root absurd setups with raw, specific performances. That’s a mix that would seem to suit AMC’s track record of building worlds around characters, rather than sinking into the details in which so much fantasy drowns itself.
The network has a track record in tech-adjacent storytelling: Halt and Catch Fire launched quietly but emerged as a critical favorite as streaming discovery continued to grow, serving as a reminder that textured dramas and dramedies frequently have longer tails beyond linear. Nielsen has shown consistent growth in time-shifted viewing for prestige series, and with AMC+ the network has a clear way to take advantage of that audience. If The Audacity catches on with early adopters — founders, engineers, policy watchers — I don’t see it being stuck there.
AMC’s content chief, meanwhile, has cast Silicon Valley as the crew laying the “freeway” down which the rest of society drives. That metaphor underscores what’s at stake for the network as well: by interviewing the people pouring that concrete, the series can function both as entertainment and a cultural record of how tech’s decisions ripple outward.
What To Watch For As The Series Unfurls On AMC
Three questions will be the tests of staying power: authenticity, empathy and insight.
- Credibility will depend on details — what pitch meetings, product reviews and investor dynamics actually feel like.
- Empathy, meantime, will need to be on tap for writers who want to portray coders and executives as dynamic characters and not caricatures.
- Insight will arrive from demonstrating how seemingly minor product choices can lead to unwanted consequences throughout schools, families and public spaces.
The Audacity is scheduled to premiere on AMC and AMC+, placing the network squarely in the middle of a conversation about AI and algorithms now swirling around boardrooms and dinner tables. Could even be as good as what the footage promises — a mix of acid humor, human stakes and industry fluency that could make it the rare tech comedy to resonate far beyond the Valley.
