Ku will focus on the studio’s product, engineering, research and business development teams, scale the startup’s AI tech and its AI production platform PAI across its film and TV slate and determine how the company builds its proprietary technology. He will report to CEO Cecilia Shen.
Ku was previously Disney’s vice president of AI and engineering in its office of technology enablement, where he worked on expanding AI tools across the company and researching AI-native production pipelines. He also helped connect Disney and OpenAI team members during the short-lived $1 billion deal to license Disney characters for OpenAI’s Sora video generator.
Ku, who also worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation and DreamWorks Animation, said Utopai “has the opportunity to build something fundamentally different” due to the close collaboration between its studio and product sides.
“We can take what we learn from real productions, turn those lessons directly into better products and workflows, and then bring those capabilities to filmmakers and studios around the world,” Ku said in a statement. “My focus is on building PAI alongside filmmakers, giving them better tools to explore ideas, refine their work, and bring their creative vision to the screen while keeping creative decisions in their hands.”
