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Disney owns some of the world's most valuable entertainment franchises, including Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, and sells access to them through its Disney+ streaming service. TikTok, meanwhile, is the short-form video app hugely popular with younger viewers, who increasingly favour quick, bite-sized clips over traditional long-form shows and films. The two companies have now agreed to let TikTok creators make short videos using Disney's characters and stories, with that content shared across both platforms.

The move fits into a wider trend of media companies trying to reach younger audiences, often called "Gen Alpha", on their own terms rather than expecting them to come to traditional streaming platforms. Disney has been experimenting with short-form video before, having already rolled out a vertical-video format on ESPN's streaming service. Disney+ subscriber growth and engagement, particularly among younger viewers, has become an important measure of the company's streaming strategy.

This deal also matters because it follows the collapse of a different plan Disney had with the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, which would have let users generate short videos of Disney characters using OpenAI's Sora tool. That partnership fell apart after OpenAI discontinued Sora, leaving Disney to pursue short-form content through a partnership with an established platform instead.