Walt Disney named Karandeep Anand its first chief technology officer on Friday, appointing an outsider as artificial intelligence and industry consolidation reshape the media business. Anand, most recently CEO of generative AI chatbot service Character.AI, will join Disney on October 2 and report directly to CEO Josh D'Amaro, the theme parks veteran who took over from Bob Iger in March. Several Character.AI technical staff are expected to follow him. At Disney, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, AI platforms and engineering across the company's business segments. Character.AI has faced legal scrutiny, including a May lawsuit involving chatbot impersonation of doctors, a January settlement of a wrongful-death lawsuit tied to a teenager's suicide, and a Disney cease-and-desist issued over unauthorized use of its characters in September 2025. Anand previously served as president and chief product officer at fintech company Brex, held senior roles at Meta's Facebook and spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he helped build the Azure platform. Disney also named insider Adam Smith chairman of its streaming business and created a television franchise role for Joe Earley, strengthening its focus on direct-to-consumer platforms including Disney+ and Hulu.