SAG-AFTRA keeps tabs on Disney/OpenAI deal

Before the end of 2025, Disney surprised everyone (pejoratively) by concluding a Billion-dollar deal with OpenAI. Thanks to him, more than 200 Disney characters have obtained a license for the Sora video platform and the ChatGPT image generator. From the general public as well as from Hollywood, the reactions we weren’t really happybut SAG-AFTRA keeps an open mind. Sort of.

Talk to Deadline At CES, union presidents Sean Astin and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland were asked about what the deal could mean for the theater industry. In 2023 and 2024, SAG-AFTRA went on strike for better protections against artists and synthetic actors forced to give up their voice rights. Crabtree-Ireland admitted he did not know all the details of the deal between the two companies, but revealed he contacted SAG-AFTRA before the public reveal.

In the call announcing the deal, “senior executives” from Disney and OpenAI said the deal included “certain assurances,” such as “the explicit exclusion of any licensing of artists’ images or voices,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “A concern I have, and I hope Sean shares, is precisely why Disney would want to do this. Doing a deal like that before the intellectual property dispute, the copyright dispute is resolved, might be smart.”

While Disney can’t be stopped from partnering with OpenAI, SAG-AFTRA knows it has made progress where it can. Crabtree-Ireland pointed out that the union’s 2023 contract requires companies to proactively disclose whether they have created and used a synthetic performance, for which there has been “no notice” so far. But they don’t stop there: every future negotiation that SAG-AFTRA participates in will involve “examining how AI is deployed and developed.” Machine learning technology has evolved significantly in recent years and the hope is to “continue to create a separation between AI, as an algorithmic tool, and humanity.”

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