Adobe is now Disney’s “Official AI Innovation Partner” under a multi-year deal to build custom AI models trained on Disney’s characters, settings and styles. It extends work with Walt Disney Imagineering to Disney’s studio and ESPN. No financial terms were disclosed.
Adobe has become Disney’s “Official AI Innovation Partner” in a multi-year deal to build custom AI models around Disney’s characters, the companies said on Monday. They announced it at Adobe MAX, its creativity conference in Miami Beach. Neither disclosed financial terms.
Disney gets early access to Adobe tools such as Firefly, Photoshop and Premiere, plus its own team of Adobe engineers. With Firefly Foundry, Adobe’s tool for building private models, the two will train AI on Disney’s characters, worlds and art styles. Adobe says the results will be “commercially safe,” though Firefly itself now also offers OpenAI’s image models.
The deal widens work that began at Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs Disney’s theme parks. In June, Adobe showed Imagineering tools that turn rough sketches into concept art and create images for franchises such as Frozen and Moana. Disney said those models were built on licensed and Disney-owned work.
Adobe will also join StudioLAB, the test lab of Disney’s film studio. It will work with ESPN on using AI with fans and the sports network’s archive. Much of the rest is marketing, with a bigger Adobe presence on Disney’s media and promotions at its parks and on its ships.
Hannah Elsakr, Adobe’s vice president of generative AI new business ventures, called the deal “the next chapter of the relationship,” with AI used “as an accelerant for artistic vision.”
It is Disney’s latest move in AI, after it announced an AI ad tool in June. It licensed more than 200 characters to OpenAI’s Sora video app in December 2025, then unwound the deal when OpenAI shut Sora down in March. A court filing last month showed Disney plans to spend about $180M over three years on Character.AI staff it is hiring.
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