Walt Disney and OpenAI introduced a three-year licensing deal Thursday that can enable customers to create quick movies that includes beloved Disney characters via synthetic intelligence.
The partnership features a $1 billion fairness funding by Disney in OpenAI, together with warrants to buy further shares within the ChatGPT maker.
The deal marks the primary time a serious leisure firm has embraced generative AI at this scale, licensing its fiercely protected characters, from Mickey Mouse to Marvel superheroes and Star Wars’s Darth Vader, for AI content material creation.
The partnership represents a dramatic shift for an business that has largely been battling AI corporations in court docket.
Disney and different inventive business giants had been suing AI corporations like OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic, accusing them of illegally utilizing their content material to coach their expertise.
The leisure large continued that authorized marketing campaign on Wednesday, individually sending a stop and desist letter to Google over the unlawful use of its mental property to coach the search engine large’s AI fashions.
For OpenAI, the deal comes at a delicate time because it faces growing questions in regards to the sustainability of its enterprise mannequin, with prices skyrocketing far sooner than income regardless of nearing one billion each day customers worldwide.
Underneath the settlement, followers will be capable of produce and share AI-generated content material that includes greater than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars franchises on OpenAI’s Sora video era platform and ChatGPT.
Disney shares rose as a lot as two % on Thursday after the announcement.
“The speedy development of synthetic intelligence marks an necessary second for our business,” stated Disney CEO Robert Iger, including the collaboration would “thoughtfully and responsibly prolong the attain of our storytelling.”
Characters obtainable for fan creations will embrace Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Elsa from Frozen, and Marvel heroes like Iron Man and Captain America, in addition to Star Wars icons together with Darth Vader and Yoda.
The settlement excludes expertise likenesses and voices from actors amid deep concern in Hollywood in regards to the impression of AI on the inventive business.
“This doesn’t in any means symbolize a risk to the creators in any respect – in actual fact the alternative. I feel it honours them and respects them, partly as a result of there is a license price related to it,” Iger informed CNBC.
Iger, in a joint interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on CNBC, insisted that the deal solely contains movies not than 30 seconds and that the expertise would not be used for longer type productions.
Past licensing, Disney will deploy OpenAI’s expertise to construct new merchandise and experiences for Disney+, the streaming platform, and can make ChatGPT obtainable to its workers.
“Disney is the worldwide gold commonplace for storytelling,” stated OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “This settlement exhibits how AI corporations and inventive leaders can work collectively responsibly.”
Each corporations emphasised their dedication to accountable AI use, with OpenAI pledging age-appropriate insurance policies and controls to stop unlawful or dangerous content material era and defend creator rights.
In Disney’s grievance in opposition to Google, OpenAI’s largest rival within the AI area, the leisure large accuses Google of infringing Disney’s copyrights on a large scale by copying a big corpus of content material with out authorisation to coach and develop AI fashions and providers.
“We have been aggressive at defending our IP, and we have gone after different corporations which have…not valued it, and that is one other instance of us doing simply that,” Iger informed CNBC.
Printed – December 12, 2025 09:43 am IST
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