{"id":886970,"date":"2026-10-18T20:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886970\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T20:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:32:11","slug":"disney-agrees-to-hire-the-majority-of-character-ais-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886970\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney agrees to hire the majority of Character.AI\u2019s workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After chatbot startup Character.AI <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/10\/13\/just-5-years-in-interactive-chatbot-platform-character-ai-files-for-bankruptcy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filed for bankruptcy<\/a> earlier this week, many of its employees will have the opportunity to take jobs at Disney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Character.AI\u2019s former CEO Karandeep Anand recently <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/09\/18\/disneys-first-cto-led-an-ai-startup-it-once-accused-of-copying-its-characters\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">became the entertainment giant\u2019s first CTO<\/a>, and the startup previously said that Disney had agreed to acquire some of its assets for $20 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/cases.stretto.com\/public\/x936\/14939\/PLEADINGS\/1493910132680000000114.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">legal filing<\/a> spotted by <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2026-10-17\/disney-offers-soft-landing-to-staff-at-troubled-character-ai\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a> revealed more details about the agreement between Character.AI and Disney, with Disney agreeing to make employment offers to at least 60 Character.AI employees \u2014 the majority of the workforce \u2014 paying them an estimated $60 million in annual compensation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The filing also says that the \u201cvast majority\u201d of Character.AI employees who were offered jobs at Disney accepted them. However, this is a stalking horse bid, so another company could come forward with a higher offer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The filing says that despite its \u201clarge and engaged user base,\u201d Character.AI has been hobbled by high costs and \u201cpotential litigation-related liabilities and regulatory engagement.\u201d (The company was <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/10\/23\/lawsuit-blames-character-ai-in-death-of-14-year-old-boy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sued by the mother of a 14-year-old boy<\/a> who said her son became obsessed with one of Character.AI\u2019s chatbots before committing suicide; it also <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/12\/12\/texas-ag-is-investigating-character-ai-other-platforms-over-child-safety-concerns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faces government investigations over child safety concerns<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After chatbot startup Character.AI filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, many of its employees will have the opportunity&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,7717,3716,74],"class_list":["post-886970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-character-ai","tag-disney","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}