Disney is moving forward with its plans to up its technology game by hiring India-born Karandeep Anand as the company’s first chief technology officer.
Anand was most recently CEO of Character.AI, the same company that Disney itself was accusing of “blatantly infringing” on Disney copyrights. Disney even sent the company a cease-and-desist letter ordering that it remove Disney’s content from the AI platform.
Despite the confrontation, Disney has now made Anand its senior executive vice president and chief technology officer.
Anand, who grew up in India, according to the New York Times, has added that he intends to bring on members of his Character.AI team at Disney.
Before heading up Character.AI, he was president and chief product officer of financial technology company Brex. Before that he had senior product and engineering leadership roles at Microsoft where he spent 15 years as part of the team that built the Azure cloud-computing platform.
“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,” Disney chief Josh D’Amaro said in a statement. “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,” D’Amaro added.
Anand has been hired to oversee Disney’s AI infrastructure and to integrate it across the company to “modernize” Disney’s technological efforts as AI grows in prominence and capability.
“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. 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,” Anand said.
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