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disney is looking to strengthen its foothold in the technology space with its latest hires.
The media giant announced Friday that it has hired Karandeep Anand, most recently CEO of Character.AI, as senior vice president and chief technology officer, effective October 2. The newly created position in Mouse House’s executive leadership will report directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro.
The executive expansion comes months after Mr. D’Amaro took over Disney’s top post and emphasized the need to embrace technology to advance every part of the company.
According to Disney, Anand will oversee Disney’s enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and artificial intelligence platforms, products and engineering, and work with various technology teams to “further modernize the way Disney builds and delivers technology across the company.”
“Karandeep brings a rare combination of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology, and AI and will be an essential addition to Disney’s senior leadership team as we advance our three priorities: great storytelling as our north star, technology that supports creativity, and operating as One Disney,” D’Amaro said in a release Friday.
D’Amaro’s immediate goal is to maintain momentum in Disney’s core growth areas, particularly streaming and parks, which have helped boost the company’s revenue in recent quarters.
In March, D’Amaro outlined his strategy, highlighting the importance of Disney’s storytelling and intellectual property to every part of the business, as well as expanding its focus on technology to drive growth. Since then, the CEO has made a number of moves to demonstrate his commitment to the effort.
The company’s streaming service, Disney+, is central to those plans. D’Amaro said Disney is considering a free, ad-supported tier of its Disney+ streaming service as a so-called “front porch” to bring more consumers onto the platform.
Disney on Thursday named Adam Smith chairman of Disney Entertainment’s direct-to-consumer division, which will oversee its streaming operations.
Executives also hinted that streaming and shopping will be integrated into Disney+, with more details expected in the spring. At an investor conference earlier this month, CFO Hugh Johnston called it an “integrated ecosystem” under the Disney+ banner that would connect TV and movie content with consumer products, Disney parks and cruises, and interact with Disney’s library of intellectual property in a variety of ways, including games.
Character.AI
Anand joins Disney after overseeing Character.AI, a platform that allows users to create and interact with character-based chatbots. In addition to Anand, Disney has hired members of Character.AI’s technical team.
Disney said Friday that Anand managed Character.AI through a “period of explosive growth” and built one of the most engaged consumer AI audiences in the world, while prioritizing user trust and safety on the platform. Mr. Anand has also held positions at financial tech company Brex. Meta‘s Facebook.
Disney has clashed with the company before. Last year, Disney sent the company a cease-and-desist letter warning it to stop using its copyrighted characters without permission. Character.AI told CNBC that it has removed the characters mentioned in Disney’s letter.
A spokesperson confirmed at the time that some characters on the platform are completely original creations, while others are “inspired by existing characters that people love.”
