Disney Just Hired Character.AI’s Boss as Its First Ever Technology Chief
Meta description: Disney has hired Character.AI boss Karandeep Anand as its first companywide technology chief, putting AI and technology under a major new role.
Disney has made a major technology move by hiring the boss of Character.AI to become its first companywide Chief Technology Officer.
Karandeep Anand will leave the AI character platform and join Disney on October 2, reporting directly to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro. The newly created position gives him responsibility for technology across the entertainment giant, including its data and AI platforms.
So what exactly is Character.AI?
Character.AI is a platform where users can create and chat with AI-powered virtual characters, with each one designed to have its own personality and style of conversation.
Instead of simply asking an AI assistant questions, users can have conversations with different virtual personalities. Someone can create a character, give it a name, personality and background, and the AI then responds while attempting to stay in character.
That makes Anand’s move particularly interesting. Disney owns some of the world’s most famous characters and entertainment franchises, although there has been no announcement that Disney plans to turn Mickey Mouse, Marvel, Star Wars or its other properties into Character.AI-style chatbots.
Disney is putting AI under one major new role
Anand’s responsibilities will stretch far beyond artificial intelligence.
Disney says he will oversee product, engineering, infrastructure, data and AI platforms and enterprise technology. Some members of Character.AI’s technical team are also expected to join him at Disney.
That puts him in a company spanning Disney+, Hulu, movies and television alongside games, theme parks and some of the world’s biggest entertainment franchises.
Disney and Character.AI already have some history
Disney and Character.AI haven’t always been on the same side. Disney previously took action over AI characters based on its intellectual property appearing on the platform. Characters connected to Frozen, Moana, Spider-Man and Star Wars were reportedly among those removed.
Now the executive who led Character.AI is moving directly to Disney, bringing additional experience from his previous work at Meta.
What happens next?
Disney hasn’t announced AI versions of its characters or said the technology will be used to create its movies or television shows.
Anand’s role is much broader, covering technology across Disney rather than one streaming service or entertainment division.
He officially arrives in October. What Disney does with its new companywide technology and AI leadership will now be one to watch.
