Karandeep Anand is leaving the management of Character.AI to become the first CTO in Disney's history, a year after the studio sent a formal notice to the same platform.
Disney has a technical director for the first time, and has chosen him from a camp that the group was still attacking until recently. Karandeep Anand, until now Character.AI's chief executive, takes the position by decision of Josh D'Amaro, who took over as head of the studio in March 2026.
In September 2025, Disney sent Character.AI a formal notice accusing the platform of hosting characters protected by its copyrights — the service allows any user to create conversational avatars and interact with them. Character.AI is also the subject of several proceedings, including complaints linking its chatbots to self-harm situations.
Anand had joined the company as an advisor to the board of directors before taking over the management in May 2025. His career spanned fifteen years at Microsoft, then at Facebook between 2015 and 2021. His appointment signals a change in the studio's posture, which chooses to integrate skills rather than just fight them in court.
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