Disney CEO Bob Iger Says AI Will Drive Efficiency and New Consumer Tools

24 days ago in "The Walt Disney Company"

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Bob Iger

Posted: Thursday November 13, 2025 9:20am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney CEO Bob Iger used today's Q4 earnings call to outline how Disney is approaching AI. His comments focused on protecting Disney's IP as generative tools advance while also looking for ways AI can improve efficiency and strengthen Disney's direct-to-consumer platforms.

Bob Iger

Protecting Disney's IP in the AI era

Iger said Disney has been in "interesting conversations with some of the AI companies," describing several of those discussions as "quite productive." He framed the talks around two goals: "seeking to not only protect the value of our IP, our creative engines, but also to seek opportunities for us to use their technology to create more engagement with consumers."

He emphasized that defending Disney's characters and stories remains a priority. "It is obviously apparent for us to protect our IP," he said, adding that he is "hopeful that ultimately we'll be able to reach some agreement... that reflect our needs to protect the IP."

Opportunities to improve efficiency and support employees

Iger said Disney also sees many operational advantages as AI tools improve. "We see opportunities in terms of efficiency and effectiveness by deploying AI," he said, noting that the benefits span production, office workflows, and support for cast members.

He described the internal work as broad and ongoing, saying the company "has been engaged with our cast members and employees" to find the right use cases.

Direct-to-consumer platforms are the biggest opportunity

The most significant upside, according to Iger, is in streaming. He pointed to "phenomenal opportunities to deploy AI across our direct-to-consumer platforms," highlighting ways the technology could make Disney's services more engaging and more personalized.

He said AI can "provide tools that make the platforms more dynamic and sticky with consumers, and give them the opportunity to create on our platforms."

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AidenRodriguez73122 days ago

Not respecting Waymo after what they did to KitKat

lazyboy97o22 days ago

Again, Waymo, one of if not the most advanced self driving car systems isn’t powered by Gemini or any other sort of generative AI such as is fueling the AI hype train. You’re adding on a criteria that also doesn’t apply to generative AI or even you’re one specific example of self-driving cars.

UNCgolf22 days ago

Self-driving cars are a completely different thing than OpenAI etc. LLMs and generative AI, though. It's certainly not what Disney is talking about.

TrainsOfDisney22 days ago

Agreed - but it’s a very fun challenge! Parts of the USA are great of course.

AidenRodriguez73122 days ago

Would just like to point out that these are not the same at all. It's very hard and expensive for example to get any ride over 1 hr which is not uncommon in the US and any small trips, including stops along the way add up QUICKLY. To get to my local airport, it costs $125 each way, before tip. That cost would add up incredibly quickly. The US is not made for people who cannot drive.

Ayla22 days ago

Uber and Lyft can do the exact same thing - with humans.

HMF22 days ago

In my experience unless the people helping are neurodivergent themselves. Most of the "Help" given tends to backfire.

HMF22 days ago

Self-Driving Cars, obviously.

CoastalElite6422 days ago

Trauma22 days ago

I don’t want to answer for them but the great work being done at Tesla AI would certainly help. With the release of 14.1.7 Self Driving is very clearly going to be solved and soon. So as long as you are able to get into the car you will be able to drive. If your handicap doesn’t allow you to get into the car, then a humanoid robot like Optimus will one day be able to assist with that.

lazyboy97o22 days ago

They’re going to benefit from people actually working on their challenges, not a magic robot.

Ayla22 days ago

How do you think AI will make your life easier because you can't drive? I'm not getting the connection.

Tom P.23 days ago

The lifecycle chart for AI:

Disney Irish23 days ago

I'm not saying it'll be profitable tomorrow, next week, or even next year. Just that they have a way to make it profitable through their enterprise model in the future. I won't go into details but I can tell you they have a few companies paying millions right now on that enterprise model. Don't think small to medium or even relatively large businesses like your law firm, think some of the top Fortune 500 companies. And the LLMs are being expanded so they can both pull from pubic as well as private data, securely of course. So a company can use it to bring in not only public data from the internet but also private data from their internal resources for their users, whether they be internal or external, ie tailored to the audience. So its expanding from where it was even just a year ago only being able to pull from public data. And yes AI isn't going away, it'll get better and smarter as time goes on. That search engine analogy was a perfect way to describe this. AI right now is where search was back in the early 90s, by the mid 00s it was able to bring back fairly accurate results, and now with AI integration its able to bring back almost near perfect results. I test this every day as part of my job.