Disney appoints Karandeep Anand as first CTO to lead enterprise tech and AI platforms

By: Makenzie Holland | CIO Dive

Dive Brief

• The Walt Disney Company has appointed Karandeep Anand as its first Chief Technology Officer and Senior Executive Vice President, effective October 2, 2026. Anand will report to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro.
• In this newly created role, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data, and AI platforms. He will work across teams to modernize Disney's approach to building and delivering technology companywide.
• Anand most recently served as CEO of Character.ai, a generative AI chatbot platform. Several members of Character.ai's technical team are also expected to join Disney as part of the transition.

Dive Insight

The creation of a CTO role at Disney comes as CEO Josh D'Amaro emphasizes the importance of embracing AI and leveraging technology as a growth driver.

D'Amaro took over as CEO six months ago, replacing longtime CEO Bob Iger, who stepped down in March 2026. D'Amaro stated that Disney was founded on "the convergence of creativity and breakthrough technology," a tradition he plans to continue by advancing AI across the company.

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

According to D'Amaro, Disney is applying AI across core technical processes in its production pipeline to:

• Bring films to market faster
• Accelerate rendering and noise reduction processes
• Expand the number of films available in 3D

The company is also using AI within its Disney+ streaming business to improve personalization and enhance its recommendation engine.

Background on AI and Copyright Issues

D'Amaro has sharpened Disney's focus on AI adoption following a complicated relationship with third-party AI services over the use of copyrighted images. Key developments include:

• Less than a year ago: Disney sent Character.ai a cease and desist letter, warning the company to stop using copyrighted Disney characters without authorization.
• December 2025: Disney reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to Google, claiming its AI models infringed on Disney's copyrighted images.
• Disney and Universal also filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Midjourney, an AI image generation company.

Anand's Role and Priorities

In the Friday announcement, Disney stated that part of Anand's focus will be on AI platforms, product, and engineering. While building Character.ai, Anand prioritized user trust and safety as the platform scaled. Prior to Character.ai, he held leadership roles at Facebook and Microsoft.

Anand will also focus on data, an enterprise priority D'Amaro highlighted during the August earnings call. Data is proving to be a critical foundation for AI, particularly for agentic capabilities.

"One area that's an enterprisewide priority for me and our whole team is data unification," D'Amaro said. "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."

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