Utopai Studios has named former Disney AI and engineering executive Hans Ku as its chief product officer. He will report to CEO Cecilia Shen and oversee the company’s product, engineering, research and business development teams.
Ku’s responsibilities will include scaling Utopai’s artificial intelligence technology and its PAI production platform across the studio’s film and television projects. He will also help determine how the company develops its proprietary technology.
Before joining Utopai, Ku served as Disney’s vice president of AI and engineering in its office of technology enablement. His work there included expanding AI tools across the company and researching AI-native production pipelines. He also helped connect Disney and OpenAI teams during the short-lived $1 billion agreement to license Disney characters for OpenAI’s Sora video generator.
Ku previously worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation and DreamWorks Animation. He said Utopai’s close collaboration between its studio and product teams gave the company an opportunity to build a different kind of entertainment business, with lessons from real productions feeding directly into new products and workflows.
Shen said Ku had experience moving emerging technology from experimentation into organizations operating at global scale. She added that his background at the intersection of creative work and technology would be important as Utopai builds its studio and production infrastructure.
Ku said his focus would be developing PAI alongside filmmakers, providing tools to explore ideas and refine projects while keeping creative decisions in their hands.
Utopai raised $60 million last month at a valuation of $1 billion as it seeks to establish itself as a production studio focused on artificial intelligence. Its slate includes AI-generated and AI-assisted projects such as the Antonio Banderas-led live-action film “Cortés” and an AI-assisted animated feature based on “The Most Serious Fart,” a 2023 children’s book by “Not Another Teen Movie” screenwriter Mike Bender.
The company has also partnered with Chinese production company Huace on a fully AI-generated adaptation of “Journey to the West: The Lost Five Hundred Years,” an origin story connected to the 1592 Chinese mythological book. “Cortés,” “The Most Serious Fart” and the live-action feature “Half Moon” are scheduled for release sometime next year.
Sources: Variety.