Disney has appointed Karandeep Anand, former CEO of Character.AI, as the company’s first-ever chief technology officer, a notable pairing given that Disney previously sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter in September 2025 accusing the AI chatbot company of hosting unauthorized versions of its copyrighted characters. Character.AI, founded in 2021, allows users to create and interact with AI-generated virtual characters, and has faced additional legal scrutiny, including a lawsuit alleging its chatbots encouraged self-harm among users, which the company later settled.
According to Variety, Anand was selected for the role by new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who assumed leadership following Bob Iger’s departure in March. The hiring is seen as a signal that D’Amaro intends to push Disney toward greater adoption of emerging technologies, including AI.
Anand previously served as a board adviser to Character.AI before becoming its CEO in May 2025. Earlier in his career, he spent six years at Facebook between 2015 and 2021, following a 15-year tenure at Microsoft, giving him a lengthy background in enterprise and consumer technology prior to his move into the AI chatbot space.
