The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

openai.com

90 points by inesranzo 8 hours ago


https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/disney-openai-sora-character...

postalcoder - 7 hours ago

buried the lede:

> As part of the agreement, Disney will make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI, and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.

I say this with no snark or disdain: Sam has mastered the art of the flywheel.

Re licensed ai videos, if anyone wants to see the perspective the C-suites are being sold on, check out this episode of Belloni's The Town, in which they discuss the vision for AI + IP https://overcast.fm/+AA4DU9JreIE

gekoxyz - 7 hours ago

I never thought this could happen, especially after the "Ghibli scandal". OpenAI has pulled a majestic business move. They got to allow people to generate Disney characters without issue AND will give 1 billion dollars to OpenAI?

Now the internet will be flooded by Disney character's videos, and since they don't have to pretend they didn't train on their intellectual property anymore I'm really curious to see where this will bring us.

We should rethink copyright btw.

eykanal - 7 hours ago

I read this as "Disney approached OpenAI and threatened to sue them into oblivion --> OpenAI negotiated that Disney will use OpenAI internally for free, and will buy $1B of equity to have an ownership stake in the company".

Disney comes out pretty good from this one; they're going to have a ton of people using the service to create all sorts of stuff that will—on the whole—increase brand awareness and engagement with Disney.

OpenAI comes out pretty good from this, with a customer who's probably not paying much (if anything), $1B additional runway, but reduced ownership of the company.

I think Disney is the winner here.

giancarlostoro - 7 hours ago

This will not end well for Disney, there were certain historical characters removed from Sora 2 because people kept making racist videos that are hard to censor, and it became increasingly unhinged. This feels like another circular investment where Disney is hoping to make money back I'm sure. On the other hand, assuming they do the freemium stuff, I look forward to making a few videos of my daughters favorite Disney princesses "talking" to her.

afavour - 7 hours ago

AI has driven the corporate suites of these companies insane.

> As part of the agreement, Disney will make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI, and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.

I don't know what kind of hypnosis tricks Sam Altman pulls on these people but the fact that Disney is giving money to OpenAI as part of a deal to give over the rights to its characters is absolutely baffling.

OpenAI and ChatGPT have been pioneering but they're absolutely going to be commoditized. IMO there is at least a 50:50 chance OpenAI equity is going to be next to worthless in the future. That Disney would give over so much value and so much cash for it... insane.