Disney Names Character.AI CEO Anand as Its First-Ever CTO

The Walt Disney Company announced on September 18, 2026 that it has hired Karandeep Anand, the chief executive of AI chatbot platform Character.AI, as its first chief technology officer. Anand joins as senior executive vice president and CTO — a newly created position — effective October 2, and will report directly to Disney chief executive Josh D'Amaro, according to the company's press release.

His remit is company-wide rather than divisional: enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering, working across Disney's segment technology teams. Disney added that "a number of Character.AI's technical team are expected to join Disney" alongside him.

The appointment comes roughly a year after Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter in September 2025, accusing the platform of "blatantly infringing" its copyrights by hosting chatbots built around Disney characters. TechCrunch reported that Character.AI removed the characters after receiving the letter. No lawsuit was ever filed over the dispute.

"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," D'Amaro said in the release, tying the hire to three stated priorities: "great storytelling as our North Star, technology in service of creativity, and operating as One Disney." Anand said he had "admired Disney my entire life for how it blends unforgettable storytelling with the latest technology."

Why it matters: Disney has run its technology through divisional leaders until now, so creating a single company-wide CTO reporting to the CEO concentrates decisions about data platforms, AI tooling and engineering standards in one seat. Those are the systems behind Disney+ delivery, ticketing and the apps guests use at the parks. Hiring the departing head of an AI company Disney had publicly accused of copying its characters also marks how quickly large media companies are now recruiting from the AI industry they have been fighting over intellectual property.

Anand's background spans 15 years at Microsoft, where he was part of the team that built the Azure platform, and a run at Meta's Facebook that ended with the role of vice president of ads and business products, per Disney's release. He was later president and chief product officer at fintech company Brex, and took over as Character.AI's chief executive in May 2025, according to TechCrunch. He holds a computer science degree from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.

Several things remain unstated. Disney did not disclose Anand's compensation, did not say who will lead Character.AI after his exit, and did not name which members of its technical staff are moving. Anand's first day is October 2.

Disclosure: NewUJ's editorial process uses Anthropic's Claude models.