Disney Names First CTO to Oversee AI and Enterprise Tech Modernization

Disney has announced the appointment of Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer and senior executive vice president, a newly created position that takes effect October 2. Anand will report directly to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro.

In this role, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms while collaborating across departments to modernize how Disney builds and delivers technology throughout the organization. Most recently, Anand served as CEO of Character.ai, a generative AI chatbot platform, and members of that company's technical team are expected to join Disney as part of the transition.

AI as Strategic Priority

The creation of this CTO position reflects D'Amaro's emphasis on AI as a critical growth lever for the company. D'Amaro assumed the CEO role six months ago, succeeding Bob Iger, who departed in March 2026.

During Disney's Q3 2026 earnings call in August, D'Amaro outlined the company's AI strategy: "We're using AI strategically across not only our studios, but across the whole enterprise. We're doing that to gain efficiency, to be faster, to accelerate velocity, and unleash creativity inside of Disney."

Disney is deploying AI across production pipeline operations to expedite film releases, improve rendering and noise reduction, and expand 3D film offerings. The company is also leveraging AI within Disney+ to refine personalization features and strengthen its recommendation system.

Navigating IP and Trust Concerns

Disney's push toward AI comes against a backdrop of intellectual property disputes with AI service providers. The company sent Character.ai a cease and desist letter less than a year ago, objecting to the platform's use of Disney-owned characters without authorization. Disney also issued a cease and desist to Google in December 2025 over alleged copyright infringement in its AI models. Additionally, Disney and Universal filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Midjourney, an AI image generation platform.

In announcing Anand's appointment, Disney emphasized that his tenure at Character.ai demonstrated a commitment to user trust and safety as the platform expanded. Before leading Character.ai, Anand held leadership positions at Facebook and Microsoft.

Data Unification as Foundation

Anand's mandate includes a focus on data strategy, an area D'Amaro identified as an enterprise-wide priority during the August earnings call. Data infrastructure is increasingly recognized as essential for AI capabilities, particularly for agentic systems.

D'Amaro stated: "One area that's an enterprisewide priority for me and our whole team is data unification. Large companies with multiple businesses, especially ones that have been built over time through a series of acquisitions, they often end up with disparate datasets that sometimes don't talk to each other, and we're putting real resources behind fixing that."