Disney+ and Machine Learning in the Streaming Age

The case follows Margaret Gupta, a (fictional) senior product manager in Disney's newly formed Office of Technology Enablement. The parks are growing; the rest of the entertainment business is not. The company's animation studios are losing money, streaming services are operating at near-zero margins, and questions linger about whether the $71 billion Fox acquisition was worth it. Gupta's manager has asked her to bring AI use cases to a Monday meeting that now includes the new CEO, Josh D'Amaro. Yet most of the low-hanging fruit was already picked. Disney+ already had recommendation engines, churn models, dynamic thumbnails, bandwidth optimization, and even early machine-learning input into creative development. The standard ML use cases that students might have proposed in 2022 are all implemented. The question students must now grapple with is: Where does AI add value in an environment where the easy wins are gone, and the data and adoption challenges are harder than the algorithms themselves?

This case updates and replaces the original 2023 version.