Disney making $1 billion investment in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora AI video generator

[HuntrixOwlMouse98]

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/disney-openai-sora-characters-video.html

What is Disney getting out of this?

$1B in OpenAI equity is like 0.002% of the company. You're trading Mickey Mouse for that?

I’m praying for the new CEO to permanently cut ties with all use of AI generated slop within the next year as one of their first orders as CEO, including this $1B order, because this is dog poo poo

They basically said no to fixing DL’s Fantasmic or licensing their classic shorts to MeTV Toons, but said yes to endorsing AI, Iger has officially lost his mind

 

[LSLS]

LOL. I'm not all up to date in Open AI financials, but a company that is estimated to lose like $40 billion over the next 5 years and who's own CEO is saying there are red alarms with seems like a weird investment. But hike those prices up.

 

[Aschwenker]

There are three sides to this: two for Disney and one for consumers.

As Disney, ChatGPT and other AI models are already making content that resembles Disney IP. Disney claims this is copyright infringement, so AI engines intentionally don't make it "perfect" and have built-in gates to prevent blatant ripping off of IP. Picking a "winner" for "licensed" AI content makes a lot of sense here, especially if this is gated behind paid ChatGPT licenses. Introduce a paywall where you can't have AI photoshop you sitting on a beach sipping margaritas with Mickey and people might actually pay for that opportunity. Then Disney gets another revenue stream from their IP without doing much since the models are already trained on Disney images anyway.

Disney also "needs" AI just like every other company "needs" AI because Wall Street says they do. Disney sees the opportunity to make characters more interactive and run down ideas that are effectively just mashups (spoiler alert, that's all generative AI is. It doesn't really create anything new and it cannot truly innovate). If Disney doesn't go "all in" on AI, the market will retaliate. And there truly are ways for a character to interact better with guests, other characters, their environment, etc. So, that also makes a lot of sense.

For consumers, AI content is (currently) not copyrightable. Thus, anything AI "creates" is (currently) in the public domain. What that means is anything you create with AI technically does not belong to you (or anyone else) and it can be freely distributed. So, that picture of you and Mickey sitting on a beach sipping margaritas could have you cropped out of it, and you now have Mickey in the public domain. I'm not sure Disney has considered that or how long such a situation will last, though I suspect trying to assert "ownership" of AI content might be what makes the AI bubble burst.

 

[Gremlin Gus]

At this point, I'm begging whoever is the next CEO of Disney to please for the love of God to be Anti-AI or even dislike generative AI at the bare minimum

 

[lazyboy97o]

LOL. I'm not all up to date in Open AI financials, but a company that is estimated to lose like $40 billion over the next 5 years and who's own CEO is saying there are red alarms with seems like a weird investment. But hike those prices up.

A CEO who was fired from the company for not being “consistently candid”.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Bob Iger on CNBC:

We all must remember, part of Iger's, (and soon Josh's) job is to lie.

 

[Andrew C]

It could be that $1B gets you "a seat at the table" for future features. If OpenAI is the engine Disney has chosen to drive autonomous character interactions with guests, being able to influence development priorities could be valuable.

The magnitude of the deal is similar to the $1.5B investment Disney made in Epic Games (for the unaware, they make Unreal Engine, which is one part of the tech behind The Volume), and I suspect Disney gets a say in features there, too.

I don't know anything, all speculation.

How much did they invest over the decades on their living character initiative again?

 

[monothingie]

 

[monothingie]

Bob Iger on CNBC:

Bob to English Translation: Our stock has underperformed since I took over, so let’s throw this against the wall and see if we can cash in on AI, hopefully before that bubble bursts and it becomes Josh’s problem. (lol like I’m actually leaving!)

 

[monothingie]

More perfect timing for Bob!

 

[Disstevefan1]

Disney can invest 1 Billion in to the ridiculous AI bubble but cant fix the people mover in DLR

 

[el_super]

Disney also "needs" AI just like every other company "needs" AI because Wall Street says they do.

It's this. Capitalism demands it. Until the broad support for AI falls apart, Disney has to be involved.

And if the broader support for AI never fades, and it does actually start replacing creatives/functions in the company, Disney can only exist if they adopt.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Disney also "needs" AI just like every other company "needs" AI because Wall Street says they do.

100%. This is like the dot com bubble all over again.

For humankinds sake, I hope this bubble bursts.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Well if anyone wanted to see me mad at Disney, this is the time because what the hell are they thinking?

Who wants to see this AI garbage with Disney characters???? Streaming it on Disney plus too???
I don't want to watch this garbage for free, why the hell would I pay for it?

I mean wow, what a way to cheapen the brand. Anyone can just create AI videos of your most iconic characters?

Step in the right direction for AI to get the license for characters, about 20 steps in the wrong direction for Disney

 

[MrPromey]

Just dropping this here as an example of how much the "general public" seems to love AI and AI content :

Not lovin' it: McDonald's pulls AI-generated Christmas ad after social media backlash

Entitled “the most terrible time of the year,” the 45-second ad featured a series of mishaps befalling people at Christmas.

www.nbcnews.com

Obviously, there were probably more people unhappy with the content than how it was made but that headline being broadcast sure seems to show that hate on AI is at least clickbait-worthy for the non-tech crowd.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

100%. This is like the dot com bubble all over again.

For humankinds sake, I hope this bubble bursts.

I'm sensing it bursting sooner rather than later. I think AI will always be used in some way now but I'm hoping its FARRRRRRRRRR away from anything remotely creative. It's perfect for writing movies anyway, just take the last 50 years of actually good stuff, jumble it up, and boom you can throw up slop for the consumers./

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

Well, if it makes sense to them...To us..

 

[Disney Irish]

I made this comment before when Iger announced AI user generated content would be coming to D+......

If you can't beat em, join em.

The AI age is here, its not going away. The current fascination with it might be a bubble, but its here to stay. And it makes sense for Disney to have a seat at the table in order to help foster it for the future.

 

[Serpico Jones]

I made this comment before when Iger announced AI user generated content would be coming to D+......

If you can't beat em, join em.

The AI age is here, its not going away. The current fascination with it might be a bubble, but its here to stay. And it makes sense for Disney to have a seat at the table in order to help foster it for the future.

This is the correct take.

 

[diogenes]

A study with a group of people does not represent the entire world population.

Sampling is pretty much the core of statistics. Now we can always take issue with the quality of a sample, but to say sampling is invalid would mean no drugs could be approved unless tested on the entire population.