Darth Vader is coming to ChatGPT and OpenAI’s Sora AI video app.
The House of Mouse and OpenAI struck a three-year licensing agreement on Thursday to make Disney “the first major content licensing partner on Sora.”
It’s also investing $1 billion into the AI pioneer and receiving warrants to purchase additional equity.
Shares of Disney climbed over 2% after the opening bell.
“As part of this new, three-year licensing agreement, Sora will be able to generate short, user-prompted social videos that can be viewed and shared by fans, drawing from a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, including costumes, props, vehicles, and iconic environments,” OpenAI said in a Thursday announcement.
In addition to striking a licensing deal, Disney is also becoming a “major customer” of the AI company, according to the announcement, and buying ChatGPT enterprise licenses for its employees.
While Sora, OpenAI’s TikTok-like AI video app, has been generating buzz and downloads since its launch earlier this year, users of the company’s more popular product, ChatGPT, will also have access to AI versions of Disney’s characters as part of the deal.
The AI-generated Disney characters will be available starting in early 2026.
The move is likely to prove controversial in Hollywood, where many actors have publicly voiced concern about AI use and concerns over how their likeness is used. Disney and OpenAI stated that “the agreement does not include any talent likenesses or voices.”
Creators are core to Disney, and its CEO Bob Iger stressed that the deal represented no threat to creators.
“I think it honors them and respects them, in part because there’s a license to be associated with it,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday.
Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images
“The other thing it does is it enables us to be comfortable that Open AI is putting guardrails essentially around how these are used, so that really there’s nothing for us to be concerned about from a consumer perspective, meaning this will be a safe environment and a safe way for consumers to engage with our founders in a new way,” he added.
Iger hinted at such a transaction during the company’s most recent earnings call, making extensive comments about the potential he sees for AI to enhance Disney’s direct-to-consumer strategy. He said the company was having extensive talks with AI companies to protect its IP as well as generate more engagement with users.
His comments demonstrate how Disney — like other Hollywood players — is looking for new ways for people to interact with its platforms and brands as user-generated content platforms and independent creators gain popularity.
Disney, like those other players, has an engagement problem. The time people spend on streaming has stayed essentially flat over the past few years, despite increased spending on content, while YouTube has grown. The bet with AI is that it can get people to spend more time on its platforms by giving them more ways to play around with its famous franchises.
The companies hinted as much in the announcement, saying that they would “collaborate to utilize OpenAI’s models to power new experiences for Disney + subscribers.”
Disney is also wary of the tech’s risk to its IP. In June, Disney, along with Comcast’s NBCUniversal studio business, sued AI company Midjourney, claiming its tech created unauthorized copies of works ranging from Star Wars to The Simpsons. Midjourney denied the claims in its legal response. The suit is ongoing.
Disney’s $1 billion cash infusion comes at a critical time for OpenAI, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the roughly $1.4 trillion the AI company has pledged to spend over the next eight years on data centers.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had previously said that large rights holders would ultimately welcome their content being used on Sora, provided it was done with proper guardrails in place. His comments came after OpenAI stepped up restrictions on the Sora app in the wake of viral user-generated videos depicting SpongeBob as Walter White and Pikachu in “Saving Private Ryan.”
“Most of the rights holders that I’ve spoken to are actually extremely excited to get their content in here,” Altman told tech analyst Ben Thompson in October. “They just want to be able to set more restrictions than they would need for images because videos feel different.”
