The Walt Disney Co. is poised to announce a major AI initiative that will transform its creative output, individuals with knowledge told TheWrap on Thursday.
The initiative is said to involve “hundreds” of people at the company and will primarily focus on post-production and visual effects.
One of the individuals said it would also involve parks and experiences, but not customer-facing.
A Disney spokesman declined to comment for this story.
A company insider told TheWrap that Disney was working on its own AI initiatives but not as expansively as suggested by the other sources. The insider said it was “too early” to say when an announcement was coming.
The news was quickly traveling through tech circles and Wall Street, even with few details immediately available.
Disney follows Lionsgate, which struck a deal with AI company Runway in September to aid in “augmenting” work in the pre- and post-production process on films and television series.
“Disney has always leaned into technology partnerships,” LightShed Ventures analyst Rich Greenfield told TheWrap. “It makes a tremendous amount of sense that Disney is heavily focused on this, but also putting substantial resources behind it.”
The announcement will mark a sea change in the industry, as one of Hollywood’s biggest companies embraces AI at a time when Hollywood is grappling with how to use the new technology amid pushback from the creative community.
Disney CEO Bob Iger has previously said AI is a tool like any other. “Walt Disney himself was a big believer in using technology in the early days to tell better stories. And he thought that technology in the hands of a great storyteller was unbelievably powerful,” Iger said at the Canva Create showcase in May.
“Don’t fixate on its ability to be disruptive — fixate on [tech’s] ability to make us better and tell better stories. Not only better stories, but to reach more people,” Iger said at the time.
He continued: “You’re never going to get in the way of it. There isn’t a generation of human beings that has ever been able to stand the way of technological advancement,” Iger said. “What we try to do is embrace the change that technology has created, and use it as the wind behind our backs instead of wind in our faces.”
Disney is uniquely poised to integrate AI into its operations, as one of the most diversified and data-intensive entertainment companies on earth, producing countless models and collecting tons of data about everything from the way that guests of its theme parks spend their money (and time) to what you’re watching on Disney+, the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming platform.
An imminent announcement of an AI partnership will surely produce blowback from the creative community, especially if the initiative will mean cuts to creative departments that are already feeling the pinch. The company eliminated more than 4,000 staff members (“cast members” in Disney-speak) in the spring of 2023 and increased its target to 8,000. (It ended up with about 7,000 layoffs by the end of the year.) The last round of layoffs happened in September and impacted roughly 300 people.
While AI is commonly utilized in Disney productions – everything from calculating the way that Ember’s fire moved in “Elemental” to creating a more lifelike young Luke Skywalker in “The Mandalorian” – a concerted effort from Disney to use the technology in all aspects of production is significant shift.
What makes this announcement even more of a hot-button topic is the move to unionize various visual effects departments, from the Marvel Studios team to the group behind “Avatar,” with AI being a sticking point.