Disney’s Future Includes Plenty of Robots

The Walt Disney Company has been hiding its most public face a bit lately.

No, I’m not talking about Mickey Mouse, who you’ll find everywhere.

I mean Disney CEO Bob Iger, who has dialed down his presence in recent months.

The head of Disney wants to give his top executives a chance to prove themselves in the public spotlight.

So, he’s been much less visible than we’ve historically seen. But Iger, like a groundhog, stuck his head out last week.

At the Disney Annual Shareholders Meeting and during its aftermath, Bob Iger made some ambitious claims.

Let’s try to figure out what’s happening at the parks and why Disney’s future includes plenty of robots.

A Desperate 2024 Deal

In February 2024, Disney announced a deal with Epic Games, which included partial ownership of the software company.

After the D23 parks panel, I jokingly referred to the deal as that thing nobody understood.

Since then, a couple of Fortnite initiatives have clarified part of the relationship.

Here’s Fortnite’s ESPN Football Island and the recently revealed ESPN Basketball Island.

Since I’m over the age of 25, I’ve never played Fortnite in my life, yet I downloaded the game to try ESPN Basketball Island.

I haven’t gotten to it yet, but it’s on the list after the Indiana Jones game I meant to play in November.

Anyway, analysts mostly dismissed Disney’s investment at the time, and I understand why.

Iger was battling activist investor Nelson Peltz, who tried to force his way onto Disney’s Board of Directors.

Many perceived the Epic Games deal as a way for Disney to score cheap headlines for a pointless collaboration.

I’ve never viewed the matter that way, and recently events have solidified my opinion.

Iger may not be a gamer, but Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro persuaded his boss to listen.

In the process, Disney finally addressed a core flaw. Since the advent of streaming, the company has lost its lock on children.

During Disney’s first 85 years of existence, it was the best company in the world at indoctrinating kids.

Characters like Mickey Mouse, Disney Princesses, and Hannah Montana have all served a purpose.

The idea is to teach kids to love Disney so that they’ll grow up, become parents, and pass that fandom to their kids.

Streaming disrupted this behavior, as children suddenly enjoyed an unprecedented amount of choice in content consumption.

Before then, they’d watch whatever their parents showed them. Thanks to second screens, they suddenly had options.

The New Tech-Based Plan

Almost overnight, Disney lost its near-total monopoly on children’s entertainment.

While Disney remains a powerhouse in the marketplace, its position is shakier than just a decade ago.

Basically, we had Hannah Montana and High School Musical at the start of the century.

The titles that came afterward such as Teen Beach Movie and Zombies haven’t reached the same heights of recognition.

You may wonder, “What’s the big deal,” but that’s an entire generation of children who largely skipped Disney.

Now that generation is almost ready to become the predominant group of parents in society…and they don’t love Disney.

So, the Epic Games deal is a blatant attempt by Disney to reach members of that lost generation. Thus, its importance is paramount.

But there’s a second aspect to this transaction. Disney just plain sucks at technology. It’s a brutal business disadvantage.

Thus, Disney invested in Epic Games while also collaborating on a Fortnite-adjacent digital realm full of branded characters.

The ESPN games are but the start of this ambitious agreement, which also has ramifications for Disney filmmaking.

Epic owns the Unreal Engine used for many video games but also plenty of movies, including recent Star Wars titles.

By purchasing a stake in Epic, Disney guarantees that it’ll have access to Unreal at a reasonable price indefinitely.

Plus, as I’ve mentioned previously, the Fortnite tie-ins are like free money, a kind of passive income for a corporation.

Fortnite is ostensibly free-to-play, yet it generated an estimated $5.8 billion in revenue in 2024.

When Fortnite players buy Disney character skins and other unlockables, that’s just found money.

Still, none of this really solves Disney’s real problem, which is a lack of future-proofing. For that, we have a new deal to discuss.

Disney’s Quietly Huge Agreement

In case you missed it, Disney and Nvidia just announced a new deal wherein the companies will work together on AI.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Nvidia, it’s been primarily a graphics card company throughout the 21^st century.

Recently, Wall Street’s fixation on artificial intelligence has turned Nvidia into a financial powerhouse.

Since this place makes the brains of the computers, Nvidia’s market cap has soared to roughly $3 trillion.

In the technology pecking order, Nvidia has somehow passed Amazon and Google/Alphabet, trailing only Apple.

That statement speaks to the significance of Nvidia’s role as a technological pioneer.

Again, the explanation for this ascension is Nvidia’s expected role in the development of mainstream AI.

While all this may be a pipe dream, the belief is that Nvidia will help create robots that can think for themselves.

For its part, Disney can already do that a bit with its BDX Droids, the Star Wars characters who have appeared at the parks.

These robots can think and move for themselves, which makes them ideal for Disney.

BDX Droids entertain guests for a fixed cost that’s theoretically cheaper than what the company would pay Cast Members.

Right now, that’s probably not the case, but it will be in a few years once the technology has advanced.

By signing this deal with Nvidia, Disney protects its status by working with an AI powerhouse.

Why does this matter? Well, Iger just made the ambitious claim that AI is “the most powerful technology that our company has ever seen.”

Folks, Disney invented the Audio-Animatronic. You can imagine how optimistic Iger must be about AI to say that.

What Does Iger Envision?

That’s the billion-dollar question here, but I think you can figure it out.

Independent of Disney’s struggles in indoctrinating the current generation into fandom, the company remains the gold standard in branding.

Disney movies, television shows, and theme parks have created a plethora of beloved characters.

Currently, only a small portion of them appear at the parks, partially because humans have physical limitations.

Costumed Cast Members get breaks every 15-20 minutes to keep them out of the sun for long.

A BDX Droid doesn’t need that break, nor would any other AI-powered robot.

Iger envisions a future where Disney can inundate the parks with beloved characters.

The CEO points to AI’s “ability to enhance and enable consumers to access, experience and enjoy our entertainment.”

Now, let’s be realistic that any widespread integration of this is likely at least five years away, the BDX Droids notwithstanding.

There’s a world of difference between testing something in a controlled environment versus full integration.

Still, I think we’re moving toward a Disney theme park visit wherein your MagicBand provides your intel to an AI droid.

Based on that information, Mickey Mouse or whoever will interact with you in a way that’s never been possible before now.

This personal engagement will be based on all the data Disney has mined from you over the years.

So, this will be akin to a familiar greeting with a friend rather than saying hello to a robot.

The idea strikes me as wildly ambitious, yet it does appear to be the direction Disney is heading in the not-too-distant future.

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Feature Photo: Disney