A new CBS legal drama bearing the city’s name is drawing attention not just for its title but for its subject matter: artificial intelligence. “Cupertino,” created by Robert and Michelle King, the team behind “Elsbeth” and “The Good Wife,” follows attorneys at a Silicon Valley law firm who take on tech companies and large corporations. The show airs Thursdays on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.
Ella Stiller, daughter of Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller, plays Christy, the secretary to attorneys Michael Price (Mike Colter) and Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller). In an interview with Decider, Stiller said she felt an immediate connection to the script when she read it last December, even before landing the role.
“The second I read the script, I was like ‘This is kind of a match made in heaven’; I just felt very connected to it and I had a real gut feeling that I was gonna work out,” Stiller said. “I would say 98 percent of the time, I do not feel that way.”
Stiller said she kept her audition a secret from family over the holidays while waiting to hear whether she had gotten the part, not wanting to “jinx it.” She found out in mid-January.
A Plot Twist Involving AI
By the end of the show’s second episode, Christy connects a potential client named Bo, played by Rob McClure, to the firm’s lawyers — only for Bo to reveal he is an artificial general intelligence. Stiller said she was told about the twist during her callback with Robert King, who instructed her not to let it change her performance.
“He let me do the scene and then he was like, ‘I don’t want this to change your performance, but I do want to tell you that Bo is an AGI entity,'” Stiller recalled. “And I was like, ‘OK, so that’s different.'”
Stiller said the show’s engagement with AI, one of the industry’s most debated topics in 2026, is part of what drew her to the project.
“I’m just passionate that humanity will overcome. I am really not into the AI stuff. I really think it’s like the downfall of humanity, I think it’s the downfall of creativity,” Stiller said. “But I also believe deeply that the people who are the real creatives, who are really put on this earth to make art, know that nothing is ever going to take that over because it is our art and it’s just about being human.”
She added that the show avoids taking a heavy-handed stance on the issue, noting that the AI character Bo becomes something close to a member of the team. “It’s not black and white,” she said.
Stiller also praised McClure’s portrayal of Bo, saying King wanted the character played as fully human, without robotic mannerisms. “I watch it, when I watch his first big episode, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, he’s brilliant.’ It’s so scary and the choices he makes,” she said.
TGI Fridays Takes Notice
Stiller said the restaurant chain TGI Fridays, which features in the show, reached out to her directly after seeing her social media posts about her character’s connection to the chain. “I got a really fun direct message last week… They were like, ‘We wanna just send you a gift card or something,'” she said.
Stiller said she hopes the show gets picked up for a second season by CBS. “If that happens, that is the dream. All we want is to keep making this show,” she said.
“Cupertino” is available on Paramount+, which offers an ad-supported Essential plan for $8.99 a month and an ad-free Premium plan, which includes Showtime titles and live CBS, for $13.99 a month. A seven-day free trial is currently available for the Premium plan.
