Disney CEO Bob Iger Says AI Can Soup up Disney+ Experience

AI is a fraught topic in Hollywood, however Disney CEO Bob Iger is bullish on utilizing the tech to soup up the Disney+ expertise.

On the corporate’s fourth-quarter earnings name on Thursday, Iger made intensive feedback in regards to the potential he sees for AI to boost Disney’s direct-to-consumer technique.

Particularly, he mentioned he is enthusiastic about utilizing AI to make the Disney+ app stickier, together with permitting customers to create short-form content material.

AI goes to “present customers of Disney+ with a way more engaged expertise, together with the flexibility for them to create user-generated content material, and to devour user-generated content material, principally quick kind, from others,” Iger mentioned in the course of the Q&A portion of the earnings name.

He additionally mentioned customers may count on Disney+ to develop into extra of an engine to advertise the corporate’s theme parks and video games (following the corporate’s funding in Epic Games final 12 months).

The feedback reveal how Disney — like different Hollywood gamers — is in search of new methods for individuals to work together with its platforms and types amid the rising recognition of user-generated content material platforms and unbiased creators.

AI is not all roses for Disney. The corporate has been cautious of the tech’s danger to its IP. In June, Disney, together with Comcast’s NBCUniversal studio unit, sued AI firm Midjourney, claiming its tech created unauthorized copies of works starting from Star Wars to The Simpsons. Midjourney denied the claims in its authorized response. The go well with is ongoing.

In a few of Iger’s most wide-ranging public feedback on AI thus far, he went on to say that he sees methods to make use of AI to drive effectivity within the manufacturing course of and throughout the corporate, in addition to to gather and mine information.

He additionally shared that the corporate was having intensive conversations with AI companies to guard its IP in addition to create extra engagement with customers. He did not cite any firms by title, however Fable Studios, a startup that has an AI streaming platform that lets customers make their very own reveals and play with current IP, has mentioned it has been in talks with Disney, amongst others.

“I am hopeful that finally we’ll have the ability to attain some settlement, both the business or the corporate by itself, with a few of these entities that might in actual fact replicate our want to guard the IP,” Iger mentioned.