Adobe named Disney’s official AI innovation partner in multi-year deal

In June 2025, Disney called one AI company a “bottomless pit of plagiarism”. By December, it had written a US$1 billion cheque to another. Now it has added a third to the family, and this one gets to work with the Imagineers.

Adobe and The Walt Disney Company have signed a multi-year strategic alliance, with Adobe to become Disney’s Official AI Innovation Partner. 

In practice, that means early access to Adobe’s latest AI and creative tools, dedicated engineering and research resources, and custom generative models built on Disney’s own intellectual property.

The other half of the deal is marketing. 

Adobe gets to tell its innovation stories through Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort, Disney Cruise Line, ESPN Edge, and StudioLAB, using global activations, industry events, thought leadership, and customer storytelling. 

It will also increase its presence across Disney’s media platforms to reach entertainment and sports audiences.

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What Adobe is building for Disney

The centrepiece is Adobe Firefly Foundry, which builds proprietary generative models for individual clients. Disney’s models will be trained on what the company calls “unique world knowledge” (character attributes, environments, and visual styles) to produce “commercially safe and production-ready outputs.”

Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development is already using it. One model turns hand-drawn sketches into fully rendered 2D concept art for the theme park development pipeline. Another generates “on-brand, franchise-accurate creative assets”, which in practice means a machine that knows exactly how many fingers Mickey has.

Disney’s creative teams will also get early access to Adobe Firefly, Adobe Premiere, and Adobe Photoshop.

Two of Disney’s innovation units are part of the deal. Adobe joins StudioLAB, The Walt Disney Studios’ prototyping hub, as a StudioLAB Innovation Partner and will work with Disney creatives and technologists on internal workflows. At the ESPN Edge Innovation Centre, the two companies will look at how AI can lift fan engagement, change how ESPN delivers content, and find “new ways to bring ESPN’s archive to life.” Co-innovation projects with both units are already underway.

Disney’s complicated relationship with AI

The deal is the latest step in Disney’s two-handed approach to generative AI. In June 2025, Disney and Universal sued image generator Midjourney. They alleged it trained on unlicensed versions of characters from franchises including Star Wars and The Simpsons and reproduced them freely.

Six months later, Disney took the opposite approach. It invested US$1 billion (about A$1.5 billion) in OpenAI and licensed more than 200 characters for use in the Sora video app.

The Adobe deal follows the same thinking: AI on Disney’s terms, trained on Disney’s IP, kept inside Disney’s walls. Adobe has spent years selling Firefly as the commercially safe option for brands nervous about copyright, so it fits the brief.

What the executives say

“Adobe and The Walt Disney Company have had a decades-long collaboration, where Adobe’s creativity, productivity and customer experience orchestration tools have supported everything from Disney’s content creation pipelines and workflows to personalised marketing campaigns and digital experiences that come to life in the parks,” said Hannah Elsakr, vice president, GenAI New Business Ventures, Adobe.

“Today’s announcement marks the next chapter of the relationship, where the two companies will build a new creative foundation that thoughtfully deploys AI as an accelerant for artistic vision, creativity and guest engagement.”

Becca Vodnoy, senior vice president, Corporate Alliances, The Walt Disney Company, said: “Disney has always embraced innovation, and this alliance with Adobe builds on a longstanding relationship between two companies that share a deep commitment to creativity.”

“By bringing together Disney’s world-class storytellers and beloved brands with Adobe’s technology, we have an exciting opportunity to give our creative teams new ways to explore and develop their ideas and bring Disney stories and experiences to life for guests and fans around the world.”

The partnership is also expected to show up at Adobe Summit, Adobe MAX, and other major industry conferences, with more activations to come over the deal’s multi-year term.

Both companies insist the tools are “human-centred and artist-led”. For a company that has spent a century guarding its mouse, the safest place for AI turns out to be inside the castle.