Disney has appointed Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer, creating a new senior role as the entertainment giant puts more focus on technology, data and artificial intelligence.
Disney announced on September 18 that Anand will join the company as senior executive vice president and CTO from October 2. He will report directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro.
The new role will cover technology across the entire company. Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering.
He will also work with technology teams across Disney’s different businesses to modernise the way the company builds and delivers technology.
Who is Karandeep Anand?
Anand has a computer science degree from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, or IIIT-H. He later completed a marketing and strategy certification from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
His education brought together two areas that have shaped his career: engineering and technology on one side, and product, strategy and business on the other.
Anand spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he held senior product and engineering roles. He was also part of the team that worked on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform.
His time at Microsoft gave him experience in building large technology systems and platforms. That background is relevant to his new role at Disney, where technology supports a wide range of businesses, including streaming, apps, data systems and other digital services.
After Microsoft, Anand moved to Meta’s Facebook. He held several leadership positions there and eventually became vice president of ads and business products.
He then joined financial technology company Brex as president and chief product officer. Before moving into artificial intelligence, Anand had already worked across cloud technology, social media advertising and financial software.
From Character.AI to Disney
Anand later moved into the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector.
He became CEO of Character.AI in mid-2025 after spending about nine months advising the company’s board. Character.AI is a generative AI chatbot company where users can have conversations with AI versions of different characters.
Anand’s appointment comes about a year after Disney had a copyright dispute with Character.AI.
Disney had accused the AI company of “blatantly infringing” its copyrights and sent it a cease-and-desist letter. The company demanded that Character.AI remove Disney characters from its platform.
Character.AI complied with Disney’s request. Despite that earlier dispute, Anand will now become part of Disney’s senior leadership team.
Disney creates CTO role for the first time
Disney did not have a chief technology officer before Anand’s appointment.
Its highest-ranking technology executive was previously Adam Smith. Disney announced on Thursday that Smith had been promoted to chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment.
Disney hired Smith in 2024 as chief product and technology officer for Disney Entertainment and ESPN. Smith had previously been vice president of product management at YouTube.
Technology becomes a bigger part of Disney’s plans
Since becoming CEO, D’Amaro has spoken about the need for Disney to build stronger and more direct relationships with its fans. A key part of that plan is creating a more connected Disney experience, with Disney+ at the centre of its digital strategy.
In his statement, Anand said he has admired Disney for most of his life.
“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.
“I’m honoured 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.”
D’Amaro said Anand’s experience across technology and AI would be important for Disney as the company works on its next phase of growth.
“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 in a statement.
“He is an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want.”
Disclaimer: This story is based on publicly available information, including company statements, published reports and publicly available professional and educational records.