Signals

US – Disney has entered a strategic agreement with OpenAI to explore how Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video generation model, could support creative development across its film, tv and streaming businesses.

Under the collaboration, Disney’s studios and creative teams will experiment with Sora to generate early-stage visual concepts, storyboards and pre-visualisation assets, helping creators move more quickly from idea to screen. The tool is intended to support early ideation and exploration, enabling teams to test narrative directions, visual styles and pacing before full-scale production begins.

Rather than replacing human creativity, the partnership positions generative AI as a way to enhance internal workflows. By accelerating development timelines and reducing production friction, the approach could unlock new creative possibilities across franchises and formats, while improving efficiency behind the scenes.

The move reflects a broader shift in how streaming platforms approach innovation. As explored in The Future Laboratory’s Streaming’s Next Frontier report, platforms have prioritised consumer-facing advances, from personalised recommendations to new content formats. Increasingly, however, innovation is turning inwards, focusing on creative infrastructure and operational systems.