Disney’s first CTO is Character.AI’s former CEO

Skip to main content The House of Mouse has poached Karandeep Anand from the chatbot company. The House of Mouse has poached Karandeep Anand from the chatbot company.by Sep 18, 2026, 6:27 PM UTCIllustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeCharles Pulliam-Moore is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.You would think that a multimedia conglomerate as large as Disney would have a few chief technology officers by now, but the company has just appointed someone to the position for the very first time.Today, Disney announced that Karandeep Anand is joining the company as its new CTO. Anand will report directly to recently appointed CEO Josh D’Amaro, and he will head up the company’s infrastructure, product, engineering, and data / AI platforms teams. Anand comes to Disney from chatbot startup Character.AI, where he served as CEO for just over a year and oversaw the company’s push into microdramas.Anand jumping ship to Disney comes as a bit of a surprise considering how this time last year, the company was sending Character.AI cease and desist letters due to the startup’s tools infringing on copyrighted IP. But Anand’s hiring could be a sign of how Disney wants to move forward with AI now that its partnership with OpenAI has fallen apart.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Charles Pulliam-MooreThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.