Disney+ have revealed that subscribers will soon be able to make their own AI-generated content on the platform.
The encroachment of AI technology into the entertainment industry continues to be a highly divisive issue, but in Disney’s recent earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2025, CEO Bob Iger opened up about how AI-based innovations are set to become part of their standard output.
He said the company was “in the midst of rolling out the biggest and the most significant changes – from a product perspective, from a technology perspective” since Disney+ launched in 2019 (via The Hollywood Reporter).
He went on to clarify: “The other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user generated content – mostly short-form – from others”.
Iger did not specify which AI companies they will be working with, but he did state that any deal will “reflect our need to protect the IP”.
One recent AI controversy erupted in September when the Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden caused controversy when she debuted an AI actor named Tilly Norwood, which some speculated could become the first AI-generated character to be signed by a talent agency.
The move prompted criticism from many actors at the time, including Emily Blunt and Natasha Lyonne, and Morgan Freeman has now added his outrage to the phenomenon.
“Nobody likes her because she’s not real and that takes the part of a real person, so it’s not going to work out very well in the movies or in television,” he said. “The union’s job is to keep actors going, so there’s going to be that conflict.”
James Cameron, who has said he is exploring ways in which AI technology could help bring costs down in the film industry, also said he remains wary of the possible Terminator-like future it could bring about, and that he believes AI cannot replace the need for human artists and actors.
In music, the AI-generated Xania Monet recently became the first known AI “artist” to gain enough radio airplay in the US to debut on a Billboard chart, and has reportedly signed a multimillion-dollar record deal with Hallwood Media.
A new study also found that 97 per cent of people “can’t tell the difference” between real and AI music.
