What’s behind Disney’s appointment of its first company-wise CTO Karandeep Anand?

Last week, entertainment giant Disney appointed Karandeep Anand as its first-ever company-wide chief technology officer, putting technology and artificial intelligence (AI) closer to its business core to offer a more connected experience.

Anand, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of generative AI chatbot company Character AI, will join Disney as senior executive vice president and CTO on October 2. He will report directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro and oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering across Disney’s businesses, the company said in the announcement.

“I’ve admired Disney my entire life for how it blends unforgettable storytelling with the latest technology to constantly push the boundaries of what entertainment can be,” he said. “I look forward to building on the company’s impressive technology capabilities to help Disney connect fans worldwide with its beloved stories and characters in new and innovative ways.”


Also Read: Disney names Character.AI's Karandeep Anand its first tech chief

According to Character AI, a number of its technical staff are also expected to join Anand at Disney.

Anand will work with Disney’s technology teams and businesses, looking after the infrastructure and platforms underpinning the company’s technology operations.

“Karandeep brings a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI,” D’Amaro said in announcing the appointment. He added Anand would be part of Disney’s push around “technology in service of creativity” and its ambition to operate as “One Disney”.

Disney’s technology organisation has previously been structured around individual businesses rather than a single company-wide CTO. Anand’s appointment is the second major shift in Disney’s push towards technology and AI advancement.

It promoted former YouTube product executive Adam Smith to the chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment last week. Smith was hired in 2024.

AI & Disney’s technology strategy

In December 2025, Disney and OpenAI announced a licensing agreement that made Disney the first major content licensing partner for Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform. Under the agreement, Sora would be able to generate user-prompted videos using more than 200 characters from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars, with a selection of fan-generated videos also planned for Disney+.

Disney also agreed to invest $1 billion in OpenAI and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.

However, in March 2026, OpenAI decided to shut down Sora and the deal subsequently fell through. A Disney spokesperson had told the BBC that “Disney will engage with other AI platforms to find ways to responsibly use the technology without infringing on intellectual property rights”.

Also Read: OpenAI drops AI video tool Sora, startling Disney, sources say

An unusual move for Anand

There is also an unusual twist to Anand’s appointment. He is moving to Disney from Character.AI, the startup Disney accused of copyright infringement in September 2025.

Disney had sent Character AI a cease-and-desist letter over what it described as unauthorised use of its copyrighted characters. The latter subsequently removed the Disney characters from its platform.

For Disney, however, Anand brings experience that goes well beyond generative AI.

Before Character.AI, he was president and chief product officer at fintech company Brex. He has previously held senior leadership roles at Meta, most recently as vice president of ads and business products. Earlier in his career, he spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he was part of the team that helped build Azure.