MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Utopai Studios has named Hans Ku, an AI executive at The Walt Disney Co., as chief product officer.
Ku will lead Utopai Studios’ product, engineering, research and business development efforts and be responsible for expanding PAI, the company’s cinematic storytelling engine for long-form productions, Utopai said.
At Disney, Ku was vice president of AI and engineering in the Office of Technology Enablement, where he expanded the company’s capabilities from AI-assisted engineering and productivity tools into generative content strategy and research into AI-native production pipelines, Utopai Studios said. He played a key leadership role in Disney’s collaboration with OpenAI on its Sora video model.
“Hans knows what it takes to move emerging technology from experimentation into an organization operating at global scale,” said Utopai Studios CEO and Co-Founder Cecilia Shen, to whom Ku will report. “From developing tools for animators early in his career to helping lead Disney's collaboration with OpenAI on Sora, Hans has consistently worked at the intersection of creative ambition and emerging technology. He brings that experience to a studio where filmmakers and technology teams develop tools together on active productions.”
Ku began his career at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he developed Creation Station, a paperless drawing and animation system. At DreamWorks Animation, he collaborated with HP to launch the DreamColor color-critical display, which won a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
At Utopai Studios, Ku will set the direction for PAI across AI models, agentic systems, production workflows and collaboration tools, while overseeing the PAI app for filmmakers, PAI Code for developers and agents, enterprise deployments, sales and studio partnerships. He and his teams will also decide where Utopai Studios develops proprietary technology and where it works with outside technology partners, the company said.
“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,” Ku said.
A 20-year veteran of entertainment, technology and content creation, prior to returning to Disney Ku was cofounder of Scenely, an AI-native script-to-screen startup. He was also senior vice president of product at FAST service Tubi, where he launched streaming’s first partnership with OpenAI.
At Instagram, he led teams responsible for Instagram.com, the Instagram Design System, mobile experiences and emerging interfaces. As chief product officer of Flipagram, he helped with its evolution into TikTok after its acquisition by ByteDance. He also co-founded mobile video creation company Ptch, which was acquired by Yahoo. He later led Yahoo Video and the launch of Yahoo Live.
Ku is a graduate of UCLA and has an MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business. He is a named inventor on several patents.
