“Creativity is the new productivity”: Disney CEO explains partnership with OpenAI

In a historic move that signals a definitive shift in the way large media conglomerates view artificial intelligence (AI), OpenAI (owner of ChatGPT) has gone from a company whose tools generated unauthorized Disney princesses to a $1 billion partnership with Mickey Mouse itself.

Disney CEO Bob Iger detailed the deal alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a TV interview with CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, explaining that “we would rather participate in this pretty drastic growth rather than just watch it happen and essentially be destabilized by it.”

Also read: Disney/OpenAI agreement changes the fun, but the public will not just swallow AI, says analyst

He also reframes the debate about how AI is reshaping entertainment, business and even work itself: “Someone once told me that creativity is the new productivity, and I think we’re starting to see that more and more.”

The deal, which brings Disney’s intellectual property to OpenAI’s Sora video generation platform, was structured to balance “aggressive” intellectual property protection with a willingness to embrace inevitable technological disruption, Iger said.

Under the terms of the three-year agreement, Disney will license approximately 200 characters for use in Sora, allowing users to create short videos featuring iconic figures ranging from Mickey Mouse to Star Wars characters.

Iger presented the partnership not as a concession to AI, but as a necessary evolution — and one that, in practice, is positive for human artists. This is because the agreement does not include the name and image, nor the voices of the characters.

“And so in reality, it doesn’t pose a threat to creators at all; in fact, it’s the opposite. I think it honors and respects them, in part because there’s a licensing fee associated with it,” he said.

Iger has repeatedly stressed that Disney wants to be at the forefront of how technology reinvents entertainment. “No human generation has ever stood in the way of technological advancement, and we do not intend to try.”

The partnership stands in stark contrast to Disney’s relationships with other technology giants. On the same day that the OpenAI deal was announced, Disney sent an out-of-court notice to Google for alleged misuse of intellectual property.

Iger explained the difference in approach by noting that, unlike Google, OpenAI agreed to “honor, value and respect” Disney content through a licensing fee and security safeguards.

“We have been aggressive in protecting our intellectual property and have gone after other companies that have not honored this,” Iger said, adding that conversations with Google have failed to “bear fruit.”

A partnership where everyone wins?

For OpenAI, reportedly under pressure from Google itself — whose Gemini 3 has been praised by AI industry luminaries such as Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff — the deal represents a validation of its generative video technology.

Altman told CNBC that user demand for Disney characters was “kind of off the charts” and envisioned a future where fans could generate personalized content, like a “personalized Buzz Lightyear birthday video” or a custom-made lightsaber scene.

Altman argued that the partnership will unleash the “latent creativity” of the general public by reducing the skill and effort required to turn ideas into reality.

The collaboration will also extend to Disney’s own streaming platform. Iger revealed plans to integrate “content generated by Sora from user commands” directly into Disney+.

He specifically said that Disney has “long wanted to have what we will call user-generated content on our platform,” suggesting the partnership is a defensive move toward streaming giant YouTube and social media epicenter TikTok, which is partly under the control of the Ellison family, which also controls entertainment rival Paramount.

The deal includes undisclosed warrants (securities that allow for the purchase of shares in the future), giving Disney a financial stake in OpenAI’s success. Iger confirmed the existence of the warrants and declined to provide further details.

He compared this forward-looking approach to Disney’s 2005 decision to license programs for iTunes, seeing the partnership with OpenAI as the modern equivalent of riding a “deep wave” of social change.

Iger revealed that the groundwork for the deal was laid several years ago, saying he first met Altman in 2022 when he was retired from Disney, before his return as CEO.

Altman gave Iger “a roadmap of sorts” for where OpenAI was headed, and Disney has been “extremely impressed” with the company’s growth since then, with all of Altman’s 2022 predictions coming to fruition much faster than either party imagined.

Iger added that Disney sees big opportunities to license other OpenAI products in the coming years, which he sees as a huge boost to “basically doing a lot of what we feel we need to accomplish in the next few years.”