Disney hopes the deal with OpenAI’s Sora will accelerate its Disney+ efforts. CEO Bob Iger further elaborated on the partnership during Monday’s first quarter 2026 earnings call.
The three-year licensing agreement allows people to inspire Sora to create 30-second videos of about 250 Disney characters. These characters do not have human voices or faces.
“The purpose of this deal is to dramatically increase our ability to publish short-form videos on Disney+ by allowing Sora to essentially curate what they create on Disney+,” Iger said. “Additionally, we want to use Sora tools to enable Disney+ subscribers to create short-form videos on our platform.”
Iger said he believes the feature will “significantly increase engagement” and does not expect it to impact viewership for other shows. For now, the company is only focused on videos that are 30 seconds or less.
Disney has not set a specific date for when Sora features will roll out to Dinsey+. The company is still working out the technical details of this feature. “I think it will be sometime in fiscal year 2026,” Iger said.
The upcoming feature will be similar to what exists on the ESPN streaming service, which will allow users to upload short-form videos they create. Iger did not say whether the service is working well on the platform. However, the CEO cited the rise of short-form and user-generated content on platforms like YouTube as a reason to move in this direction.
It will continue…
