Disney Braces for a Savage New Layoff Wave as AI Takes Hold

Disney is bracing for another wave of layoffs, with its Legal and Global Affairs operation facing a major reduction as the company examines how technology can reshape its work.

The warning comes from a memo written last week by Horacio Gutierrez, Disney’s Chief Legal and Global Affairs (LGA) Officer.

The planned cuts will affect the LGA department, which currently employs about 1,000 people.

Earlier reports indicated that additional layoffs are also expected across other departments within the company.

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The memo points directly to changing technology as a driving force behind the overhaul.

Gutierrez described the process as a staff “reinvention as technology reshapes,” signaling that the department’s structure and daily operations are being reconsidered.

Disney’s legal, government relations, operations, and other functions are included in the assessment.

The memo presents the review as a broad examination of how work is completed and how those professional operations are organized.

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Noting that Disney’s “legal, government relations, operations, and others are going through their own reinvention as technology reshapes how work gets done, and the operating models that underpin those professions,” Gutierrez says he’s “taking a dispassionate look at every aspect of how we do our work, so we can do it in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.”

That search for efficiency will involve difficult decisions about staffing, resources, and future investments.

The warning makes clear that employees will personally feel the effects as LGA becomes significantly smaller than it is today.

“Obviously, this will require hard choices about where and how we deploy our resources and investments, including our staffing investments and how we work will look different in the months and years ahead,” Gutierrez writes in the memo, adding, “LGA will be a much smaller organization than it is today, and some of you will personally be affected by decisions we make in this process.”

The memo also identifies several models that could replace or reduce work currently performed within LGA.

Those possibilities include automated workflows, expanded service arrangements, outside legal providers, and outsourcing.

“As a result, we’ll have to consider a whole range of new models for different workloads, including automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies, moving to self-service models where appropriate, engaging alternative legal providers and others, and new expanded share services, even outsourcing.”

The looming reduction arrives as Disney places greater emphasis on technology and AI.

The company has appointed its first Chief Technology Officer, Karandeep Anand, whose background is in AI.

A separate round of layoffs is also looming among Disney executives.

Earlier in the year, those executives were strongly advised to consider an early retirement package.

The latest warning follows two previous rounds of job cuts during the year.

Disney eliminated 1,000 jobs in April, then cut hundreds more positions in July.

Disney’s total workforce is around 231,000, leaving the newly announced LGA overhaul as one part of a much larger corporate operation.

The memo does not provide an exact number of positions that will disappear, but it says the organization will become much smaller.

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