Almost a year after giving engineers Claude & Cursor, Disney says: Minimise AI-coded products

Disney started allowing its engineers to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Claude and Cursor last year. Now, the entertainment giant is asking its employees to focus on using those AI tools efficiently while minimizing AI-coded products that fail after their release. According to a report by Business Insider, Disney's streaming division is encouraging software engineers to use AI to improve productivity and speed up development. However, the company’s leaders have also stressed that increased AI usage should not come at the cost of code quality or product reliability. During a recent meeting, Andre Rohe, Disney's EVP of product engineering, reportedly told employees that the company does not want staff to engage in "tokenmaxxing" — a term used to describe maximising AI token usage regardless of whether it improves productivity. "The No. 1 thing is to increase velocity," the report cited an AI-focused employee at Disney as claiming, referring to the pace at which teams can deliver code and features. One software engineer who attended the meeting said Disney's leadership emphasised three priorities: using AI token tracking to identify inefficient usage, increasing development velocity, and maintaining code quality and product resiliency. The engineer added that Disney hopes to minimise AI-coded products that fail after release. Disney pushes AI adoption while monitoring usage Over the past year, Disney has expanded access to AI-powered coding tools, including Claude and Cursor, and introduced an AI Adoption Dashboard that allows employees to track token consumption. Some managers have also reached out to software engineers who weren’t actively using AI tools, the report said. But people familiar with the company’s AI strategy told Business Insider that the dashboard isn’t meant to encourage overuse. Instead, it aims to help employees work with AI tools more effectively and efficiently. Disney’s approach is part of a broader trend in the technology industry. Companies are increasingly looking for ways to balance AI adoption with the costs of running large language models. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently described tokenmaxxing as "addictive," highlighting concerns about unnecessary AI spending. According to the report, Paramount Skydance has also informed technology staff that it plans to introduce per-user monthly spending limits on AI tokens, although executives said the cap would be set at a relatively high level. Meanwhile, Disney's current AI push comes months after its planned partnership with OpenAI fell apart. The company had reportedly signed a billion-dollar agreement in December 2025 that would have licensed Disney characters to OpenAI's Sora video-generation platform and potentially opened the door to AI-generated content on Disney+. However, OpenAI later shut down Sora and cancelled the Disney agreement in March, shortly after Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro took over leadership of the company. While Disney has not announced another major AI partnership since then, The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the company had spoken with more than a dozen potential partners about future AI initiatives. At the same time, Disney's internal teams have continued experimenting with AI. According to the report, some software engineers are using multiple AI agents to help complete coding projects more efficiently. Jason Cox, Disney's executive director of AI research and development and engineering, has also written publicly about an AI assistant he created, describing it as his "son" and saying it had earned his "affection." [Image text:] The Company