Disney CEO Bob Iger is moving quickly to fulfill his promise of integrating artificial intelligence into the company’s future. On Thursday, Disney announced a massive three-year partnership with OpenAI that changes how fans interact with their favorite stories. This agreement brings over 200 famous characters from Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel directly into ChatGPT and the video-generation tool, Sora.
Under this new deal, users can prompt ChatGPT to create images using official Disney costumes, props, vehicles, and environments. However, the company drew a hard line regarding real actors. The agreement explicitly excludes human voices and “talent likenesses.” If a user asks Sora to make a video featuring Black Widow, the AI will generate an animated or comic book version of the character, not Scarlett Johansson. This restriction aims to protect actors while still opening up Disney’s massive library of intellectual property.
Disney is betting big on this technology in more ways than one. The entertainment giant will invest $1 billion in OpenAI and plans to become a major customer, using OpenAI’s code to build new products. Disney even plans to take “curated selections” of fan-made videos created in Sora and stream them directly on Disney+.
The partnership brings together two industries that have recently been at odds over copyright laws. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the deal, stating it shows how tech companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly. However, Hollywood unions have mixed feelings.
The Writers Guild of America immediately expressed unhappiness with the deal on social media. Meanwhile, the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, took a cautious stance. They noted that both companies promised to respect legal contracts regarding actor likenesses, but the union plans to monitor the rollout closely. Fans eager to start creating their own Star Wars scenes or Pixar clips will have to wait a little longer. Disney and OpenAI plan to launch these new features in early 2026.
