Disney Taps Character.AI's Karandeep Anand as First Companywide CTO

Disney has appointed Karandeep Anand as its first companywide Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective October 2. The move marks a significant step in the entertainment giant's efforts to close the technological gap with competitors like Netflix. Anand, who joins Disney after running Character.AI for roughly 15 months, will report directly to CEO Josh D'Amaro.

Before joining Character.AI, Anand spent 15 years at Microsoft contributing to the Azure cloud-computing platform and later worked on various projects at Facebook, including gaming, payments, analytics, and advertising. He is originally from India.

Anand's tenure at Character.AI was marked by significant controversy over child safety concerns, particularly regarding free-form conversations between minors and chatbots. In response, Anand implemented restrictions to prevent minors from engaging in unrestricted conversations with the platform's chatbots, a measure seen as one of the most protective measures taken by the company so far.

The appointment comes at a critical time for Disney, which has faced mounting pressure to adopt AI technology while balancing concerns about its impact on creative workers. The company's stock has declined around 6% this year and approximately 40% over the last five years due in part to growth concerns related to linear TV erosion.