Disney CEO Bob Iger painted the team-up as Disney taking the next step in content with the newest technology and waved away concerns about whether the deal represents a threat to human creators.
“We’ve always viewed technological advances as opportunity, not threat,” Iger said.
“It’s going to happen regardless, and we’d rather participate in the rather dramatic growth, rather than just watching it happen and essentially being disrupted by it,” he later added.
Iger also noted in an interview with CNBC that as part of the deal, Disney characters can be used in Sora videos, but it does not include rights to likenesses or voices.
“OpenAI is putting guardrails essentially around how these are used, so that really there’s nothing to be concerned about from a consumer perspective,” he said. “This will be a safe environment and a safe way for consumers to engage with our characters in a new way.”
Iger said the company would also feature some user-generated AI content from Sora on the Disney+ platform, which he said would be a great way to increase engagement with younger users.
Disney will receive warrants to buy additional equity in OpenAI as part of the deal, and Iger said there would be future opportunities for the company to become an OpenAI customer, including licensing from OpenAI.
Altman for his part said Sora users have longed to use Disney characters in their videos and said he hoped adding them to the platform could “unleash a sort of whole new way that people use this technology.”
“We have underestimated the amount of latent creativity in the world,” said Altman. “But if you lower the effort, skill, time required to create new things people very quickly are able to bring ideas to life.”
