Disney's Character.ai talent deal priced at $60 million a year

Disney has offered jobs to 66 Character.ai employees at an estimated annual pay cost of about $60 million, according to details from Character.ai's Chapter 11 filing reported by Business Insider. The hiring sits alongside Disney's $20 million bid in the chatbot company's bankruptcy auction.

What we know

Laughing Place, citing Business Insider's reporting on the filing, says Disney has also set aside a further $30 million aggregate retention pool for staff who stay. Other coverage of the same filings puts Character.ai's full-time headcount at about 86, which would mean most of the workforce has received offers.

The hiring follows Disney's appointment of former Character.ai chief executive Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer. Character.ai filed for bankruptcy in mid-October, citing legal, regulatory and operational pressures. These include lawsuits from families who say teenagers harmed themselves after using its chatbots. Several state attorneys general have asked the bankruptcy judge to make sure that user data, particularly data relating to minors, is protected by whoever wins the auction.

Why it matters

The numbers show where the value in Character.ai now sits: in its people rather than its platform. Disney is paying roughly three times as much each year for staff as it is bidding for intellectual property. The structure lets a large media group acquire conversational AI expertise without taking on the consumer app, its user data or the litigation attached to it. Other companion-app companies in distress may be wound down the same way, with skills and code sold off separately from user relationships. That leaves regulators with a harder question about who is responsible for the data left behind. For smaller operators, the deal also shows how highly the market values experienced engineers in this field.

What to watch

Whether the court or the states attach conditions to staff transfers as the December sale hearing approaches.