Walt Disney has appointed Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer, effective October 2. According to the latest announcement from The Walt Disney Company, Anand will serve as Senior Executive Vice President and CTO, reporting directly to CEO Josh D'Amaro. His responsibilities will include overseeing enterprise technology, infrastructure, data management and AI platforms, as well as product and engineering across Disney's businesses, working across the company's segment technology teams to further modernize how Disney builds and delivers technology company-wide. As reported by The Walt Disney Company, the newly created position in the Mouse House's C-suite will report directly to CEO Josh D'Amaro, with Anand bringing a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI to Disney's senior leadership team.
Anand brings extensive technology leadership experience to Disney, having previously served as chief executive officer of Character.AI, a generative AI chatbot service. As reported by The Walt Disney Company, he led Character.AI through a period of explosive growth, building one of the most engaged consumer-AI audiences in the world, while also making user trust and safety a priority as the platform scaled. Additionally, he served as president and chief product officer at fintech company Brex, and held several leadership roles at Meta's Facebook, most recently as Vice President of Ads & Business Products. Earlier in his career, Anand held senior product and engineering leadership roles at Microsoft, where he worked for 15 years and was part of the team that built the Azure platform. He holds a Computer Science degree from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anand describes himself as an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want, and has real enthusiasm and respect for Disney, sharing the company's belief that technology creates the most value when it helps people do their best work.
The appointment has an unusual connection to Disney, as reported by Mint. In September last year, Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter over the startup's unauthorized use of Disney characters, following which Character.AI removed the characters from its platform. The startup has also faced legal scrutiny, with Character.AI and Google settling lawsuits in January brought by families who accused the company of harming minors, including allegations that the technology caused the suicide of a Florida teenager. The company recently expanded into AI-generated comics and animated vertical microdramas, with Anand promoting AI-generated entertainment and interactive storytelling, arguing that audiences increasingly want to participate in stories rather than simply consume them. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, a number of Character.AI's technical team will follow Anand to Disney from October 2, indicating the strategic importance of this transition. According to CNBC, Character.AI acknowledged that while some characters on its platform are completely original creations, others are "inspired by existing characters that people love."
According to The Walt Disney Company, Anand's appointment reflects CEO Josh D'Amaro's prioritization of technology harnessing. D'Amaro led the company's investment in video-game maker Epic Games and plans to turn Disney's streaming service into a hub for movies, TV shows, gaming and other experiences. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, D'Amaro stated that Anand brings a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI, and will be a vital addition to Disney's senior leadership team as they further their three priorities: great storytelling as their North Star, technology in service of creativity, and operating as One Disney. The appointment gives an outspoken advocate for generative AI considerable influence over the technology used throughout Disney's film, TV, streaming, and parks businesses, with several members of Character.AI's technical staff expected to follow him to Disney. The leadership expansion comes months after D'Amaro took the top post at Disney and emphasized the need to embrace technology to advance all parts of the company.
Disney is significantly expanding its technology footprint under CEO Josh D'Amaro's leadership. In March, D'Amaro outlined his strategy focusing on the importance of Disney's storytelling and intellectual property to all parts of the business, as well as expanding its concentration in tech to fuel growth. Since then, the company has made various moves to demonstrate this focus, including naming Adam Smith as chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment, overseeing the streaming business. At an investor conference earlier this month, CFO Hugh Johnston called it an "integrated ecosystem" under the Disney+ banner, which would bring together TV and film content with consumer products, Disney's parks and cruises, and interacting with Disney's library of intellectual property in various ways, including gaming. The company's streaming service, Disney+, has been at the center of such plans, with Disney considering a free, ad-supported tier as a "front porch" to get more consumers onto the platform, and executives teasing that streaming and shopping will be integrated on Disney+.
