Since taking over Walt Disney Co., CEO Josh D’Amaro has said he wants his company to embrace a more tech-forward approach. With the latest leadership shakeup, he’s showing how serious he is about the new direction.
On Friday, Disney tapped Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand in the newly created role of chief technology officer reporting directly to D’Amaro. This comes a day after the appointment of Adam Smith, a former YouTube and Google executive, to the lynchpin role of chairman of the Direct-to-Consumer division within Disney Entertainment.
Hollywood veteran Joe Earley, meanwhile, will now serve in the newly created role of president of Disney Entertainment Television Franchise and Content Strategy, reporting to Debra OConnell, the chairman of Disney Entertainment Television who oversees the company’s portfolio of television brands.
The shakeup marks a critical shift of strategic priorities to a tech focus. Anand oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering. Smith’s expanded role sees how leading strategy, development and platform innovation at Disney+ and Hulu.
What was once a more traditional, legacy entertainment job has taken on a dimension suited for the next generation — one in which technological advances and analytics are just as important as the more meat-and-potatoes concerns like what shows and movies are being made and when those same shows and movies are being scheduled. It’s telling that Anand comes from an AI background first — Disney even sent a cease and desist order to Character.AI a year ago — and Smith has spent more time at tech companies than media ones.
The appointments also speak to the importance of the One Disney model that D’Amaro has been touting, with the end game being a Disney super-app that will combine various disparate elements into a single, unified direct-to-consumer experience — with AI being a vehicle to help the company move towards this goal.
The company said the new leadership structure is designed to create a “clear focus and alignment across critical business functions” towards D’Amaro’s goal. The company has teased that elements of that vision will start being introduced in the spring.
“I’ve admired Disney my entire life for how it blends unforgettable storytelling with the latest technology to constantly push the boundaries of what entertainment can be,” Anand said in a statement. “I’m honored to join a team with such extraordinary creative talent, and I look forward to building on the company’s impressive technology capabilities to help Disney connect fans worldwide with its beloved stories and characters in new and innovative ways.”
“Disney has the best storytellers and the most passionate fandom in the world, and I couldn’t be prouder of what this team has built together,” Smith said in a statement. “We’ve established real momentum, and our vision ahead is clear: make Disney+ the connection point for fans everywhere to engage with the full breadth and depth of the broader Disney ecosystem. I’m grateful for this team, energized by what’s ahead, and excited for our next chapter.”
Next generation vision
In his first memo to staff after becoming CEO in March, D’Amaro loosely described One Disney as an ideal of the company’s global businesses “aligned and working in a connected way,” where the company “can build on our strengths, reach people wherever they are, and deepen their relationship with Disney.”
The app, from those with knowledge of its development, will eventually be a place where you can watch the latest programming from Disney+, make reservations for your next trip to Walt Disney World (and secure your line-skipping Lightning Lanes for said trip) and buy a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt from the Disney Store, in a single, seamless experience.
This is going to take a lot of technological knowhow to get done, particularly given how cumbersome and unreliable any of the separate Disney apps have been in the past. To combine those into a single touchpoint that aims to be drama-free is going to be a feat. And it will require some real energy and prowess behind the scenes.
If you know where to look, you can see that the efforts to change and consolidate are already underway. Earlier this week, the Play Disney Parks app (this one meant to help you whittle away time while you’re in the queue for your favorite Disney attraction and occasionally, as is the case in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, allow you to interact with show elements in the park), was quietly taken off line. It’s unclear, based on the conversations that we have had, if the app or elements from the app will reappear in the future Disney super-app, but it’s certainly a possibility.
Disney+ and Hulu, meanwhile, remain on track to become a unified standalone app by year end. The company is also launching a pilot with TikTok in the U.S. in the coming months that will bring Disney-centric fan-created content to Disney+’s Verts short-form vertical video feed.
But the kinds of big changes D’Amaro wants requires a cultural shift, which is where Smith comes in.
Not the usual Disney execs
Anand led Character.AI, a generative AI chatbot service able to take on different personas, through a period of explosive growth — all while clashing with media companies who cried foul that it was using their IP.
That includes Disney, which sought to have the company remove its copyrighted Disney characters from its platform.
A year later, and Anand and members of his technical team are joining the Mickey Mouse company.
“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 as we further our three priorities: great storytelling as our North Star, technology in service of creativity, and operating as One Disney,” D’Amaro said. “He is an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want. He also has real enthusiasm and respect for Disney, a clear sense of where technology and creativity meet, and shares our belief that technology creates the most value when it helps people do their best work.”
Prior to joining Disney, Smith worked in the YouTube Music + Premium, subscriptions and commerce platforms as a vice president of product management. He also spent time on Google Fiber, the search giant’s niche internet connectivity business, as well as various units like Google Books, Google News and Google Finance.
That tech background, his ability to manage technical projects and his work at Disney even in that short stint impressed the company’s leadership.
“Over the past two years, Adam has done an exceptional job building a world-class team of product and technology leaders and has significantly enhanced the Disney+ user experience globally,” Disney President and Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden said. “Alan Bergman and I are pleased to recognize the tremendous impact he has had on our direct-to-consumer business since he joined Disney, and we are confident that he is the right leader to meet the critical moment we’re in and take us to the next level.”
Their technical expertise will be key as Disney figures out how to more effectively use AI throughout the company. D’Amaro has discussed the benefits of using AI, from improving search and recommendation in Disney+ to helping speed up the production process in the studio. As with other media leaders, he insisted that the creative process will continue to be led by humans.
But the specifics on how AI will be utilized in other areas, including film production, remains an open-ended question after Disney and OpenAI parted ways on their content deal with the now-scuttled Sora video app.
As TheWrap previously reported, Disney still faces considerable resistance to AI from the creative side, and still needs to clearly define how it will use generative AI tools.
With Disney pivoting quickly to this tech-forward approach, expect more changes to come.
