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Disney hires 66 Character.AI employees under $180M deal

By Drooid · Oct 21, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Disney Hires AI Team

Disney is hiring 66 former Character.AI employees after the startup filed for Chapter 11.
Disney will pay $60 million per year for three years, totaling $180 million.
Disney offered a $20 million non-exclusive, perpetual license to select Character.AI assets.
Former Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand became Disney’s first chief technology officer in September 2026.
The hires represent most of Character.AI’s roughly 86-person workforce as of September 2026.

Summary

Disney Faces Data Lawsuit

The Chapter 11 filing on October 12 in Delaware started a Section 363 asset sale.
Disney paid $7.5 million before the filing, including a $2 million refundable deposit.
The deal leaves all user data and the consumer app with the bankrupt company.
Attorneys general from 39 states and D.C. filed a notice alleging mishandling of minors’ data.
A $700,000 break-up fee applies if a higher bidder wins the auction.

History

Historical Context

Google’s 2014 purchase of DeepMind—founded in 2010 by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman—for a reported £400 million marked the shift from buying content platforms like YouTube (2006) to securing AI talent. Backed early by Horizons Ventures and Peter Thiel, the deal paved the way for the 2023 merger with Google Brain and heightened regulatory scrutiny of AI data practices.

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Disney Hires AI Team

Disney is hiring 66 former Character.AI employees after the startup filed for Chapter 11.
Disney will pay $60 million per year for three years, totaling $180 million.
Disney offered a $20 million non-exclusive, perpetual license to select Character.AI assets.
Former Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand became Disney’s first chief technology officer in September 2026.
The hires represent most of Character.AI’s roughly 86-person workforce as of September 2026.

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