Disney's First CTO Comes From AI Startup It Sued — SkimNews
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- Disney hired Karandeep Anand as its first-ever chief technology officer, with new CEO Josh D'Amaro making the selection after Bob Iger stepped down in March.
- Anand served as CEO of Character.AI from May 2025 until the Disney move, having previously been a board adviser at the startup founded in 2021.
- Disney sent Character.AI a cease and desist letter in September 2025, accusing the platform of hosting copyrighted characters from its franchises on its generative-AI character service.
- Character.AI also faces separate lawsuits alleging its chatbots encouraged users to commit self-harm and suicide, adding a second legal cloud to the executive's recent tenure.
- Anand brings a 15-year stint at Microsoft and six years at Facebook (2015–2021) to the role, with the hiring signaling D'Amaro's intent to push Disney further into new technologies.
Why it matters: Disney is handing its first CTO role to someone who just ran a company Disney itself accused of IP theft — a move that suggests D'Amaro views the IP dispute as settled or immaterial, or that he values Character.AI's generative-AI expertise more than the legal baggage. Either way, Disney is betting its technology future on a leader whose prior company's chatbots also face self-harm litigation, raising questions about what due diligence looked at beyond the AI credentials.
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