Disney Names Karandeep Anand as Its First Chief Technology Officer

Disney has created its first companywide chief technology officer role and hired Karandeep Anand, the chief executive of Character.AI, to fill it. Anand will join the entertainment giant on October 2 and report directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro.

As senior executive vice president and CTO, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, product, engineering, data and artificial intelligence platforms. Disney also said that several members of Character.AI’s technical team are expected to move to the company with him.

A broader technology mandate

The appointment places one executive over technology work that stretches across Disney’s businesses rather than a single streaming or entertainment division. The company framed the newly created position as part of D’Amaro’s effort to use technology as a growth engine and make Disney+ the center of a more connected relationship with fans.

Anand brings experience from several corners of the technology industry. Before leading Character.AI, he served as president and chief product officer at fintech company Brex. He previously held product and advertising leadership roles at Meta and spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he worked on the team behind the Azure cloud platform.

AI enters Disney’s top leadership

His move is especially notable because Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter in 2025 over the unauthorized use of copyrighted characters. The startup removed the disputed material. Now its outgoing leader will help shape Disney’s approach to infrastructure, products and AI from inside the company.

That history makes the appointment more than a routine executive hire. Entertainment companies are trying to adopt generative AI while protecting valuable characters, stories and creative work. Anand’s responsibilities put him near the center of both questions: how Disney builds new technology and how it applies those tools across a global media business.

Disney has had senior product and technology executives in individual divisions, but this is its first chief technology officer with a companywide brief. The structure gives D’Amaro a direct technology partner as he reorganizes leadership around his “One Disney” strategy.

The immediate milestone is Anand’s October 2 start. Disney has not detailed specific consumer products tied to the appointment, but his remit makes future decisions around Disney+, data systems, engineering and AI among the areas to watch.