Disney is about to start making your ads with AI.
The company is preparing to launch a beta version of a tool that generates television ads using AI, a Disney executive told staff at an internal meeting, according to a recording obtained by Business Insider. The beta is due in July.
Scripts, video and music in one workflow #
Disney first revealed the tool in January, at CES. Adam Smith, product and technology chief for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, gave the launch timing last week, calling it “one of the clearest areas where we’re really making traction”.
The tool generates scripts, video and music in a single workflow, Smith said. It is aimed at small and medium-sized advertisers, the kind that cannot afford a creative agency to make a polished 30-second spot. Eventually it will sit inside Disney’s self-service ad platform, where brands buy and manage their own campaigns.
Disney says a human stays in the loop.
Disney is not first here. Google, Meta and TikTok have all rolled out their own AI tools for advertisers, and this is a separate effort from Disney’s work with Adobe to speed up theme-park design.
Into a market that has soured on AI #
The timing is awkward.
A year ago, advertisers were excited about AI’s promise to save time and money. Now many are nervous about a consumer backlash against AI “slop”, the cheap, uncanny output that has pushed brands from McDonald’s to fashion labels to pull campaigns after public mockery.
That wariness is the whole game for a tool like this. Agencies say it could open advertising to brands with smaller budgets. But they also say clients now scrutinise AI far more than they used to, the same anxiety driving platforms to crack down on AI slop. “It’s not a shiny new object anymore,” one media-agency executive told Business Insider.
Why it matters #
Disney’s advertising business is one of its growth engines, and connected TV is where the money is moving. If Disney can give small advertisers a fast, cheap way to make ads that do not look cheap, it captures budgets it could not reach before. If the ads look like slop, it hands sceptical viewers another reason to tune out.
The difference is entirely in the quality, and that is the part no one has solved yet.
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