Disney and Adobe to co-develop custom AI models on Firefly Foundry, Reuters reports

Disney and Adobe have struck a multi-year deal to co-develop custom generative AI models for Disney, with the goal of scaling AI tools across its theme parks, studio and sports media businesses, Reuters reported on Monday, Nov. 9.

The models will be built through Adobe’s Firefly Foundry, which lets enterprises build and deploy custom AI models, and will be trained on Disney’s intellectual property to generate production-ready outputs, Reuters said. The models will be private and proprietary to Disney. In a joint announcement at Adobe’s MAX conference, the companies said the models are trained on Disney “character attributes, environments, visual styles” and described the arrangement as a multi-year strategic alliance. Neither Reuters nor the release disclosed financial terms.

The work starts with speeding up project development at Disney’s Experiences division, which includes its theme parks, resorts and cruise lines, and with concept exploration at StudioLAB, the innovation hub within Walt Disney Studios, Reuters reported. Walt Disney Imagineering has already deployed a custom image generation model and a sketch-to-image model that turns hand-drawn sketches into fully rendered concept art, according to Reuters.

Adobe will also work with ESPN to use AI to boost engagement with sports fans and bring more of ESPN’s content archive to audiences, Reuters said. The release says that work runs through the ESPN Edge Innovation Center, and that Adobe joins StudioLAB as an innovation partner. Adobe will provide Disney early access to Firefly, Firefly Foundry, Premiere and Photoshop, plus dedicated engineering and research resources, the companies said.

Kyle Laughlin, Disney’s senior vice president of R&D technology and engineering, told Reuters the tools let Imagineering compress creative work “that would have taken months to now being able to do that in hours and days.” He said the tools are “in no way meant to replace” roles at Imagineering.

Reuters noted that Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Disney was considering cutting thousands of jobs and had asked some managers to target 20% in annual cost savings.

Disney named former Character.AI chief Karandeep Anand its first chief technology officer in September, with a remit that includes AI platforms. Disney is also the stalking-horse bidder in the Character.AI asset sale, AITD reported.

Disney and Adobe to co-develop custom AI models on Firefly Foundry, Reuters reports

Sources