Disney, Tubi alum joins AI firm Utopai Studios

Former Disney, Tubi and Instagram exec Hans Ku has joined AI firm Utopai Studios as its chief product officer.

Ku, who reports to chief exec and co-founder Cecilia Shen, will lead product, engineering, research and business development at the fast-growing firm.

He will also be responsible for scaling the technology supporting Utopai’s film and TV slate, and expanding its cinematic storytelling engine PAI for long-form productions.

Utopai raised $60m last month to support its plans to expand in AI video creation, valuing the company at almost $1bn.

It has bases in LA, APAC and Germany, and has two dozen series and films on the slate, with six in pre-production or production, including Antonio Banderas-starring Cortés and Space Nation, co-produced with Ex Machina Studios.

Ku was most recently vice president of AI & engineering at Disney’s technology enablement unit, working on deals including the now-ended partnership with Sora.

He also held roles at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he created paperless drawing and animation system Creation Station, and at DreamWorks Animation.

Ku has previously co-founded AI startup Scenely and was senior vice president of product at Tubi. He also worked at Meta-owned Instagram and was chief product officer of Flipagram, which was acquired by ByteDance and evolved into TikTok.

He also co-founded mobile video creation company Ptch, which Yahoo acquired, before going on to work at Yahoo Video and launch Yahoo Live.

Shen said: “Hans knows what it takes to move emerging technology from experimentation into an organisation operating at global scale.

“We are building a global studio for a new era of entertainment, and Hans will be central to scaling the technology and infrastructure that make that possible.”

Ku added: “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.

“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.”