September 21 2026
Karandeep Anand: Disney’s first-ever CTO
(Sep 21, 2026) The IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Karandeep Anand, who has held senior roles at Microsoft, Meta, Brex and Character.AI, is joining Disney as its first chief technology officer on October 2, at a time when AI is reshaping entertainment and how audiences interact with stories.
Karandeep Anand’s journey into technology began in India, where access to a computer while growing up in a middle-class family gave him an early glimpse of its possibilities. Years later, after building a career across cloud computing, social platforms, fintech and artificial intelligence, he is taking on a newly created role at The Walt Disney Company as its first chief technology officer.
As Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Karandeep will report directly to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro and oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering across the studio’s segment technology teams.
The appointment comes shortly after his alma mater, IIIT Hyderabad, honoured him with an Alumni Achiever Award at its 29th Foundation Day celebrations. In December 2025, Karandeep was also featured in TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year issue as part of its “Architects of AI” group, following his tenure as CEO of Character.AI. Together, the milestones mark the latest chapter in a career that has taken him from Microsoft and Meta to fintech, generative AI and now Disney.
For Karandeep, the move brings together technology and entertainment in a way that has long fascinated him. In his social media post following the announcement, he mentioned:
I’ve admired Disney for my entire life. From movies to the parks to experiences, Disney continually blends unforgettable storytelling with the latest technology to constantly push the boundaries of what entertainment can be.
Karandeep Anand
“I’m honored to join a team with such extraordinary creative talent, and I look forward to building on the company’s impressive technology capabilities to help Disney connect fans worldwide with its beloved stories and characters in new and innovative ways,” he added.
An early connection with technology
Karandeep studied at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, earning a B.Tech in Computer Science with Honors in Data Sciences. His academic work included databases and data mining, and he also undertook and delivered solutions for the Andhra Pradesh government’s e-governance programme, according to the career information he has shared.
His connection with the technology industry began even before he completed his undergraduate degree. Karandeep joined Microsoft as an intern in April 2000 while studying at IIIT Hyderabad.
That internship eventually became one-and-a-half decade career at Microsoft. From September 2002 to June 2015, he worked on Azure and held senior product leadership responsibilities across the cloud platform, including application, management and developer platforms, user experience, commerce and payments, and the Azure Marketplace and ecosystem.
Looking back at those years, Karandeep described them as “13 crazy, chaotic and fun” years in which he had the opportunity to build, grow and run product development teams working across Microsoft’s public, private and hybrid cloud platforms.
From Microsoft to Meta
After Microsoft, Karandeep moved into an increasingly broad set of technology and product leadership roles at Facebook.
His work there covered infrastructure, developer platforms, payments, gaming, analytics, commerce and business products. He served as Head of Technical Product/Program Management for Facebook Infrastructure, working across technology that supported services including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
He later became Head of Product for Facebook Platform, Audience Network, Games and Payments, followed by a role as Head of Product for Marketplace and Payments.
As Facebook expanded its business products, Karandeep became Vice President and Head of Workplace, and later Vice President for Ads and Business Products. His roles took him from the underlying infrastructure supporting large-scale digital services to products designed for consumers and businesses across global markets. But his career also taught him something about how he wanted to make professional choices.
In a social media post during his time at Facebook, he reflected on a period when he had prioritised a job title over what genuinely interested him:
When you optimize around your passions rather than career titles, success will always follow.
Karandeep Anand
Into the world of AI with Character.AI
In 2022, Karandeep joined Brex as President and Chief Product Officer, and remained in that role until 2025, subsequently serving as an advisor.
The next move would take him into one of the most rapidly developing areas of technology, artificial intelligence. In May 2025, Karandeep Anand became CEO of Character.AI, a chatbot platform that allows users to interact with AI-generated personalities. The company positioned the platform around entertainment and fandom, developing features that included Books, studio-made microdramas through Series, and Comics that could transform stories while encouraging users to create and interact in new ways.
The platform had about 20 million active users, according to TIME’s coverage, with most users born after 1997. Users spent an average of 70 to 80 minutes a day on the service. Karandeep viewed that behaviour as a shift away from traditional social-media consumption.
“They have broken out of the doomscrolling world of social media,” he told TIME, describing AI interaction as a more engaging alternative. But Character.AI’s growth also came with difficult questions around the safety and emotional impact of AI companions, particularly for younger users. The company faced lawsuits from families following teen deaths and introduced safety updates, including limits on teen usage.
That experience placed Karandeep at the intersection of two defining aspects of the AI era, the possibilities of increasingly personalised technology and the responsibilities that come with putting it in the hands of millions of users.
Recognition in the AI era
The technology leader’s Character.AI chapter also brought wider recognition. In December 2025, he was featured in TIME’s Person of the Year issue, which named “Architects of AI” collectively as its Person of the Year. Karandeep appeared among a group of prominent figures shaping the development of artificial intelligence, alongside names including Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Fei-Fei Li, Lisa Su, Dario Amodei and Demis Hassabis, as well as fellow Indian-origin AI leader Sriram Krishnan.
From AI characters to Disney characters
Karandeep now moves from leading a company built around AI-generated personalities and interactive storytelling to a company whose global entertainment universe is built around some of the world’s most recognisable characters and stories.
At Disney, his remit will extend beyond generative AI. He will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering across the company’s segment technology teams. Character.AI described the transition as the next step in its journey, saying Karandeep would help build on Disney’s technology capabilities to “connect fans worldwide with its beloved stories and characters in new and innovative ways.”
Karandeep echoed that idea in his own announcement. “I’m immensely proud of what we have built at Character.AI and our entire team. We’ve done incredible work building a leading platform for entertainment and fandom,” he wrote. He also thanked D’Amaro and the Disney team for the welcome, adding that he “can’t wait to get started!”
For Karandeep Anand, whose technology journey began with access to a computer in India, the next chapter brings together technology, storytelling and one of the world’s best-known entertainment companies. Beyond technology and business, Karandeep’s social media posts offer glimpses of his love for travel and food.
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Written By: Amrita Priya
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