The bio
I act for a living and I build AI companies for a living. It turns out those are the same job in different rooms.
Most recent screen credit: Darryl Warren in Peacock's Dr. Death (Season 2, 2023), the father of Hannah Warren, a toddler born without a windpipe whose experimental trachea transplant opens the season. First three episodes, opposite Mandy Moore. The range before that: Jack in The Outs (Vimeo cult web series, co-cast with Bowen Yang and Alan Cumming), the foal Joey at Lincoln Center Theater in War Horse (eight shows a week, two-plus years, Bunraku three-person puppetry), voice work in Audible's Hot White Heist with Alan Cumming directing.
I run two AI companies. Plumwheel (co-founder, CCO) turns one founder conversation into weeks of marketing in the founder's voice. RAGnos Labs builds AI-native products end to end for early-stage teams. Through PowerToFly I host an ongoing speaker series with eight hundred recorded interviews on what AI is doing to work. The neurodiversity arm is SHRM-eligible and runs as a student resource at Buffalo, Pomona, and Richmond.
Twenty years of pictures. My theater photography ran in The New York Times, Time Out New York, Backstage, and Playbill. The archive lives at huntercanningphoto.com. It is not the current job. It is the throughline that runs underneath the founder work.
How I got here
The first role I ever had was the Changeling Child in A Midsummer Night's Dream. I was six. I didn't read the script. I learned the part by listening to rehearsals until it was just in me. That's how it worked for a while: I could hold a Shakespeare role at six years old, but I couldn't get through a chapter book.
Reading and writing were genuinely hard for a long time. It took until I was an adult to get the full picture: dyslexia, ADHD. By then I'd already figured out the workarounds. Performance was native. So was photography. Voice work, hosting, interviewing. Mediums where you could think out loud, hold an audience, build something in real time without having to file it first through the page.
Twenty years of that shapes how you see things. When I started working with AI tools seriously, what struck me wasn't the hype. It was how many of the tools leveled a playing field I'd been navigating sideways for years. Drafting, structuring, transcription, synthesis: the kinds of language work that took me three times the energy before I had AI to work with. I'm not an evangelist. I was on the SAG and WGA picket lines and using ChatGPT the same week. The discomfort is the curriculum. So is what the tools actually do for people who think differently.
Most of the speaking topics (AI and neurodiversity, the picket line and the prompt, building people-first AI products) start at the same place. A kid who could memorize Shakespeare before he could finish a chapter book.
Personal
Raised in the Santa Monica Mountains. BFA, SUNY Purchase. Lives in NYC with his chihuahua, Francis.
Elsewhere
- The acting work lives at credits.
- The companies live at founder.
- Direct company links: plumwheel.com and ragnos.io.
- The speaking work lives at speaking.
- The photography archive lives at huntercanningphoto.com.
If you got this far
Booking a keynote, asking about acting, or sending press is all the same form. Pick a topic and I will read it.
Often asked
Is Hunter Lee Canning the same person as Hunter Canning?
Yes. Hunter Lee Canning and Hunter Canning are the same person. Hunter Lee Canning is the full professional name, Hunter Canning is the credited variant used across selected profiles and media, and @huntercanning is the canonical social handle.
What does Hunter Lee Canning do?
Hunter Lee Canning is a New York-based actor and founder. His acting credits include Peacock's Dr. Death, Vimeo's The Outs, Lincoln Center Theater's War Horse, Audible's Hot White Heist, and Welcome to Night Vale. He is also co-founder and CCO of Plumwheel and founder of RAGnos Labs.
What is Hunter Lee Canning known for as an actor?
Hunter Lee Canning played Darryl Warren in Peacock's Dr. Death (Season 2, 2023, first three episodes opposite Mandy Moore), played Jack in Vimeo's The Outs (the queer web series created by Adam Goldman, co-cast with Bowen Yang and Alan Cumming), performed Joey the foal in Lincoln Center Theater's War Horse (roughly two years, eight shows a week, three-person Bunraku puppetry), and has voice credits with Audible and Welcome to Night Vale.
What companies has Hunter Lee Canning founded?
Hunter Lee Canning is co-founder and CCO of Plumwheel, an AI marketing company for founder-led content systems, and founder of RAGnos Labs, an AI build lab for products, diagnostics, and agent-native systems.
Where can I see Hunter Lee Canning's photography archive?
The photography archive lives at huntercanningphoto.com. It covers two decades of New York theater photography and is a legacy archive and creative throughline, not a current service offering.
Where is Hunter Lee Canning based?
Hunter Lee Canning is based in New York City and trained at SUNY Purchase.