Distro Customisation And Middleware Software Inclusion

I have been very recently introduced to UNIX/LINUX and I am overwhelmed by the sheer power. I am a CS Graduate student and for my final year project I want to make an artificially intelligent Linux Distro. While I can achieve the AI Part, I am confused about the customizing and OS. My initial thought was to use SUSE Studio to create a custom version to suit my needs, however I have a few queries. - Say I install the SUSE in a virtual machine and customize it to it's brim and add middleware software to it. Then can I make it a distro from the installed version? - If it is not possible with SUSE what would be your suggested oS? - I would like to customize everything that is graphically visible to an user (boot screen, UI etc) and I would like to add my own software that starts up with the OS or as a background service. - I will not customize the kernel although there is a probability that I might need to tweak it.