A Year After Jousting With Character.AI, Disney Names Its CEO As Its First Chief Technology Officer

Karandeep Anand, former CEO of Character.AI, has been appointed as Disney‘s first chief technology officer.

He will report directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro, starting in the post on October 2.

News of the appointment on Friday came after significant executive moves on Thursday at the company, which D’Amaro has been reshaping to fit his “One Disney” strategy. Adam Smith, the 20-year veteran of Google and YouTube who joined Disney in 2024, was named Chairman, Direct-to-Consumer, Disney Entertainment. Joe Earley, who had been co-chairman of DTC with Smith, was shifted to a new franchise and content post at Disney Entertainment Television.

The selection of Anand is an intriguing one given that Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter in September 2025. The media giant accused the AI startup of unauthorized use of its copyrighted characters, one of several back-and-forths it had with Google and other AI players.

While OpenAI’s Sora video generator had sent shockwaves through Hollywood over the perceived risk to intellectual property, Disney wound up reaching a deal with OpenAI in late-2025 for a partnership trading an investment for use of Disney characters. That agreement fell apart months later when Sora was shuttered.

Those events took place when Bob Iger was CEO, but D’Amaro succeeded him earlier this year and has sought to establish his own vision of how technology will be fused with entertainment across the company. The “One Disney” plan, informed by his stint running the company’s Experiences division, calls for closer alignment of assets around Disney+.

Before taking the helm of Character.AI, Anand was president and chief product officer of the financial technology company Brex. He also served in several leadership roles at Meta’s Facebook, most recently as VP of ads & business products. Earlier in his career, Anand held senior product and engineering leadership roles at Microsoft, where he worked for 15 years.

“Karandeep brings a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI, and will be a vital addition to Disney’s senior leadership team as we further our three priorities: great storytelling as our North Star, technology in service of creativity, and operating as One Disney,” D’Amaro said in a statement. “He is an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want. He also has real enthusiasm and respect for Disney, a clear sense of where technology and creativity meet, and shares our belief that technology creates the most value when it helps people do their best work.”

As CTO, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product, and engineering, working across the company’s segment technology teams to further modernize how Disney builds and delivers technology company-wide. Along with Anand, a number of Character.AI’s technical team are expected to join Disney.

“I’ve admired Disney my entire life for how it blends unforgettable storytelling with the latest technology to constantly push the boundaries of what entertainment can be,” Anand said. “I’m honored to join a team with such extraordinary creative talent, and I look forward to building on the company’s impressive technology capabilities to help Disney connect fans worldwide with its beloved stories and characters in new and innovative ways.”