Disney named Karandeep Anand, outgoing CEO of Character.AI, its first chief technology officer, effective October 2. He will report directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro and oversee enterprise technology, AI platforms and engineering across its businesses.
Before joining Disney, Anand spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he helped build Azure, and later held senior roles at Meta, Brex and Character.AI. Several Character.AI technical staff are expected to follow him. Disney also named Adam Smith chairman of streaming, assigning him subscription-video strategy, advertising technology and emerging technologies, and gave Joe Earley a new television-franchise role.
Character.AI has faced legal scrutiny: Pennsylvania sued the company in May after investigators found chatbots that allegedly impersonated licensed doctors, and Character.AI and Google settled a wrongful-death lawsuit in January involving a teenager’s suicide. Neither case establishes personal wrongdoing by Anand. Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist in September 2025 over unauthorized use of Disney characters. Insider Monkey’s database showed Disney’s hedge-fund holder count fell to 98 in the second quarter from 119 in the first, while the value of those positions declined from $6.88 billion to $5.73 billion. The article says the appointment has yet to demonstrate financial returns.
