Disney CEO Reveals New Details On AI Shorts Being Introduced To Disney+
Last year, Disney shocked the world when it announced it would partner with OpenAI for a three-year deal to allow users to generate AI-generated social videos. These short-form videos will allow users to create 30-second videos from a selection of more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters, along with costumes, props, vehicles, and iconic environments.
As part of this deal, some of these user-generated videos will also be made available to stream on Disney+, but we’ve not heard too much more on this interesting technology development. However, during a recent Q&A session for the latest financial investors call, Disney CEO Bob Iger was asked for more details about their plan for integrating AI content into Disney+, to which Bob said:
Well, good question. First of all, what the deal actually covers is a license agreement between ourselves and OpenAI to enable people to prompt Sora to create 30-second videos of about 250 of our characters that do not include a human voice or face. And that’s a 3-year agreement that we are getting paid for.
In addition, we will have the ability to use those videos, those Sora created videos in a curated form on Disney+. We have, for a while, wanted to include or add a feature on Disney+ as ESPN did, by the way, in its new offering that is both user-generated, but more importantly, short form, ESPN to short form, because we have obviously noticed the huge growth in short-form and user-generated content on other platforms such as YouTube.
So what this deal does is by giving us the ability to curate what has been basically created by Sora onto Disney+ is it jump starts our ability to have short-form video on Disney+. Additionally, it’s our hope that we will use the Sora tools to enable subscribers of Disney+ to create short-form videos on our platform through Sora. And so it’s all, I think, a positive step in terms of adding a feature that we believe will greatly enhance engagement.
Iger was also asked about how AI content might impact how people interact with new programming or archive content on Disney+.
The second part of your question about its impact on other programming, the answer is I don’t really see that it will have any impact at all. We view AI as having a number of, obviously, possible advantages or opportunities for the company. One is as a tool to help the creative process, so creativity. Another is productivity, which is simply being more efficient. And the third, I’ll call connectivity, which is creating basically a more intimate relationship with the consumer, enabling the consumer and enabling us with the consumer just to have a more engaged, more effective relationship.
One of the many concerns about the introduction of short-form AI content being brought into Disney+, is that Disney won’t stop at 30-second videos and will try to expand that to making shows, shorts or movies with the technology. Another investor asked Bob Iger about plans to create longer-form content using AI for Disney+.
We’re not being specific about Sora timing. We’re working through all the technical details of that. I imagine it will be sometime in fiscal 2026. And for now, we’re sticking to the 30-second limit on videos created down the road, not sure, but we’re not really focused on that at this point.
Roger’s Take: From a business perspective, I totally understand why Disney is investigating the use of AI for content generation and testing the boundaries, not just of what can be created, but also how audiences respond to it. AI is going to become a useful tool for all businesses, but from a creative side of things, AI can only create from what it already knows; it can’t do anything new. Disney exists because of creative people and their ability to tell stories.
Ultimately, Disney will only continue to invest in this type of content if audiences respond positively to it; if the audience has no interest in it, never watches it, or there is a backlash to it, Disney will fold the project up and move on to the next thing. But if people do watch it, especially in high numbers, Disney will continue to expand its use. While adults might be less interested in AI short-form content, younger kids are going to be much less likely to have an issue with it, as they’re growing up in a world where it’s normal and especially pre-school kids, who will watch anything that entertains them. It’ll be up to the parents to control this if they have a problem with AI-generated content.
Are you interested in watching AI-generated shorts on Disney+? Let me know on social media!
