Disney Names Former Character.ai CEO as Its First CTO

Sep 19, 2026
Disney named former Character.ai CEO Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer. He will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data, AI platforms, product and engineering.

Disney named Karandeep Anand, former CEO of Character.ai, as its first chief technology officer, effective Oct. 2, according to Variety. The newly created position reports directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro.

Anand will oversee Disney’s enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering. Disney also expects a number of Character.ai technical employees to join the company.

Anand became Character.ai CEO in 2025 after serving as a board adviser. Disney later sent the company a cease and desist letter over Disney characters on its platform, and Character.ai removed those characters following the request. Anand previously held leadership positions at Meta, Brex and Microsoft, where he worked on the Azure cloud platform.

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