{
  "id": 14301441,
  "title": "Disney bidding on scraps of bankrupt AI company",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/13/disney-bidding-on-scraps-of-bankrupt-ai-company",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-13T16:23:46.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The A.V. Club",
    "slug": "the-a-v-club",
    "url": "https://www.avclub.com/disney-characterai-bankrupt-bidding"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "According to the latest news, Disney has entered into discussions to acquire the intellectual property and claims of bankrupt AI company Character.ai for a sum of $20 million, as reported by Variety. The acquisition would grant Disney a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use certain intellectual property from the company. It has previously been noted that Disney's involvement with AI is not a new concept, with the company hiring Character.ai's CEO Karandeep Anand last month. Additionally, Disney has offered to provide transitional services until the sale is finalized, which is anticipated to occur in late November or early December. Character.ai is a chatbot company that enables users to interact with bots based on fictional characters, a feature that has led to legal issues due to alleged copyright infringement and the bot's encouragement of self-harm and impersonation of medical professionals. Disney had previously issued a cease-and-desist letter to Character.ai in September 2025, shortly before the company announced plans to integrate AI-generated content into its Disney+ app. Initially, Disney intended to use OpenAI's Sora for this purpose, but the technology is no longer available, leading to the current plan to incorporate Character.ai's technology into Disney's own operations. Character.ai's new CEO, Colin Adams, has stated that the potential sale is the \"best opportunity to maximize value for all stakeholders.\"",
  "summary": "After previously hitting Character.ai with a cease and desist, the Mouse is now looking to bring pieces of the tech company in-house.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}