Disney's AI deal with Adobe is raising eyebrows

Disney and Adobe have formed a multi-year partnership to collaborate on the development of custom generative AI models specifically for Disney. This agreement aims to integrate AI tools across various Disney businesses, including theme parks, studios, and sports media. The initiative will initially focus on accelerating project development timelines at Disney's Experiences division, which oversees global theme parks, resorts, and cruise lines.

Additionally, Adobe will assist Disney's StudioLAB, a creative innovation hub within Walt Disney Studios, in exploring new concepts using AI tools.

Adobe will utilize its Firefly Foundry platform to assist Disney in building and deploying custom AI models. These models will be trained on Disney's intellectual property and will generate production-ready outputs. The partnership will ensure that the AI models remain private and proprietary to Disney. At Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative and research and development arm responsible for Disney Experiences, a custom image generation model and a sketch-to-image model have already been deployed. These models can transform hand-drawn sketches into fully rendered concept art.

Walt Disney Imagineering's senior vice president of R&D technology and engineering, Kyle Laughlin, highlighted the benefits of this partnership. Laughlin explained that Adobe Foundry has enabled Disney to significantly reduce the creative process time from months to hours and days. This acceleration will allow Disney to run multiple iterations efficiently and minimize costly changes during the construction of their experiences.

Importantly, Laughlin emphasized that the AI tools will not replace the roles at Imagineering but will instead augment their capabilities. Earlier this month, Bloomberg News reported that Disney was considering significant job cuts, with some managers targeting a 20% reduction in annual costs.