Disney taps AI executive Karandeep Anand as first tech chief
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Karandeep Anand will join Disney on Oct 2, reporting directly to chief executive Josh D’Amaro.
PHOTO: DISNEY
Disney on Sept 18 named Karandeep Anand, the chief executive of AI start-up Character.AI, as its first chief technology officer, a year after sending the company a cease-and-desist letter over unauthorised use of Disney characters.
He will join Disney on Oct 2 as senior executive vice-president and CTO, reporting directly to chief executive Josh D’Amaro.
Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data management and artificial-intelligence platforms, product and engineering, Disney said in a statement.
His previous company, Character.AI, is an online chatbot that lets users talk with artificially created characters. Disney has had chief technology officers for its business units, but never in a corporate-wide role.
Prior to Character.AI, Anand worked at Microsoft and Facebook, where he served as vice-president for advertisements and business products.
D’Amaro called Anand “an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want”.
Character.AI removed the Disney characters after the September 2025 letter.
The start-up has also faced lawsuits over chatbot safety.
In January, Character.AI and Google settled suits filed by families accusing AI chatbots of harming minors, including contributing to a Florida teenager’s suicide.
Terms were not disclosed, and the companies admitted no liability.
Disney has pursued both litigation and licensing with AI firms.
A US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) investment and three-year licensing deal with OpenAI, announced in December 2025, would have let users of OpenAI’s Sora video app create short AI videos featuring Disney characters.
It ended in March after OpenAI shut down Sora in a cost-cutting move. AFP, BLOOMBERG