Disney has launched a new deal with TikTok that will allow users who opt into the program to push their viral videos featuring select Disney characters to the Disney Plus app. The content will live in the Verts section of the app, geared toward mobile users interested in short videos. Disney is framing the arrangement as “thoughtfully curated Disney-centric fan-created content.” Asad Ayaz, Disney’s chief marketing and brand officer, said in a statement, “The best storytellers are fans first. This collaboration creates a new bridge between the stories we tell and the creativity they inspire, giving creators a bigger stage to share what they’ve made, and audiences more to discover on Disney Plus every day.” The deal follows the quiet killing of last year’s $1 billion deal between Disney and OpenAI that would have added Sora AI-generated Disney characters to the app, as Sam Altman decided to refocus on enterprise customers. The new TikTok deal does not contain AI components, but AI is still lurking in the background. Although the new U.S. arm of TikTok is majority-owned by U.S. companies, including Oracle, this deal appears to fall under the umbrella of the Chinese arm of TikTok, owned by ByteDance. TikTok’s global head of entertainment, Dawn Yang, said, “Together with Disney, we’re bringing the authentic creator expression of the TikTok community to Disney Plus, inviting audiences to experience the shared creativity that makes fandom so powerful.”