Disney and Adobe Sign Multi-Year Deal to Build Custom AI Models for Parks, Film and ESPN

The models will be built on Adobe Firefly Foundry, a service that lets large companies create their own generative models with Adobe's help, and will be trained on Disney's intellectual property, Reuters reported. They will remain private and proprietary to Disney. As part of the alliance Adobe becomes an Official AI Innovation Partner of The Walt Disney Company, according to an account of the announcement by the Disney fan site BlogMickey.

The deal gives Disney a way to use generative tools on its own terms. The company has been one of the most active rights holders in pursuing AI developers over copyright: Axios reported in June that it had sued Midjourney and China's MiniMax and sent Google a cease-and-desist letter. Models trained on Disney's own catalogue and kept in-house sidestep the question of what a general-purpose model was trained on, and Adobe has marketed Firefly output as commercially safe for that reason.

The first phase covers two areas. At Disney Experiences, the division that runs the company's parks, resorts and cruise line, the tools are meant to speed up project development. At StudioLAB, the innovation hub inside Walt Disney Studios, they will support concept exploration, and Adobe joins that unit as a StudioLAB Innovation Partner. Separately, Adobe will work with ESPN's innovation group, ESPN Edge, on using AI to increase fan engagement and bring more of the network's archive to audiences.

Adobe will also give Disney early access to new versions of Firefly, Firefly Foundry, Premiere and Photoshop and will assign engineering and research staff to Disney's production pipeline, according to BlogMickey's report. Adobe, for its part, gets to feature work from Disney's parks and cruise line in its own marketing and at industry events.

The agreement expands work that began earlier this year. In June, Walt Disney Imagineering's research and development group said it had brought Firefly Foundry into its design and pre-production process for the parks. It has since deployed two tools: a sketch-to-image model that turns hand-drawn concepts into fully rendered 2D concept art, and a custom image model that produces assets consistent with Disney's franchises. Adobe described a third tool in June that would turn 2D renderings into 3D prototypes for planning construction and estimating materials; Monday's announcement did not mention it, BlogMickey noted.

Disney's Kyle Laughlin said the tools compress creative work that once took months into hours and days, Reuters reported, while adding that they are "in no way meant to replace" roles at Imagineering. Becca Vodnoy, Disney's senior vice president of corporate alliances, said the company "has always embraced innovation" and described the deal as giving its creative teams new ways to develop ideas. Hannah Elsakr, Adobe's vice president of generative AI new business ventures, called it the next chapter in a relationship in which Adobe's tools already support Disney's content pipelines.

The reassurance on jobs matters because of what else Disney is doing. Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that the company was considering cutting thousands of jobs and had asked some managers to target 20% in annual cost savings.

Disney's interest in AI for park planning extends to the Gulf. The company's latest earnings call covered AI use at Imagineering, including "digital twins" for the planned Disneyland Abu Dhabi, according to BlogMickey.

Co-development projects with StudioLAB and ESPN Edge are already under way, and the companies expect to add more over the term of the agreement.