By Jake Kanter
Publication Date: 2026-02-09 22:55:00
EXCLUSIVE: Google appears to have backed down in its AI dispute with Disney.
Disney issued Google with a cease and desist letter in December, complaining that the tech giant’s AI products were behaving like a “virtual vending machine” for the Mouse House’s IP.
Nearly two months on, and Deadline can reveal that Google tools, including Gemini and Nano Banana, are now denying prompts that contain Disney-owned characters.
In January, Deadline experimented with several Google AI prompts involving the likes of Yoda, Iron Man, Frozen’s Elsa, and Winnie-the-Pooh, all of which generated high-quality images.
These same prompts were today blocked by Google’s AI models. The denial message read: “I can’t generate the image you requested right now due to concerns from third-party content providers. Please edit your prompt and try again.”
Two other U.S.-based sources told Deadline they were also thwarted in efforts to generate AI images from…
