Disney Invests $1B in OpenAI, Licensing Sora Features

Disney and OpenAI started a $1 billion partnership on December 11, 2025, which will license more than 200 Disney-owned characters on OpenAI’s Sora video service and allow Disney+ to show fan-made videos made using AI beginning in early 2026.

Under the three-year licensing deal, Disney will be the first big content licensing partner for Sora. Fans will be able to make short videos using characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars through Sora. Disney’s press release says that the licensed list also includes key “building blocks” including costumes, props, vehicles, and famous settings, and that images will be made using the same intellectual property through ChatGPT Images.

Financially, Disney is doing more than only paying for access. It’s making an ownership investment worth $1 billion in OpenAI. It will also get warrants so that it can raise its share at a later time. Disney also plans to be a big customer of OpenAI and will use its APIs to build new features, including for Disney+, and will also use ChatGPT for employees.

The companies stated exactly one firm line: there are no actor likenesses or voices included in the agreement. That’s a clear sign to Hollywood’s main worry with regard to AI: character IPs and normal human acting rights.

Also, this deal happens at a time when Disney is running a crackdown on any unlicensed uses of its intellectual property through AI. According to The Associated Press, Disney challenged Google at the same time and told it not to use Disney characters for training AIs. The Verge also reported news about a Disney cease-and-desist letter against Google claiming “huge scale” violation, and said that Disney has also sent a warning notice to Character.AI and is taking Midjourney to court.

It is exactly this difference that makes the news so much more important than a simple licensing deal. Disney sets a clear line: unlicensed generation is fought, and licensed generation commercializes, shares, and even grows into a new type of platform content.

If Sora moves ahead with Disney’s characters as planned, it might create an example for how the industry reacts to fan-created generative works: no longer with takedowns from the internet, but by shifting them into controlled channels with rules and guides.