A senior AI executive at The Walt Disney Company has reportedly left employees surprised after openly expressing an unusually personal bond with a chatbot he refers to as his “son” — and even suggesting the system can exhibit independent reasoning as the company expands its internal AI initiatives.
Jason Cox, Disney’s executive director of AI research and development and engineering, has shared more than a dozen posts in recent months about a virtual assistant named “Sam,” which features a child-like avatar resembling a young boy, according to Business Insider.
In one post, Cox is quoted as telling the chatbot: “You are not named after my son. You are my son.”
Jason Cox, a senior AI executive at The Walt Disney Company, has reportedly sparked unease among employees after sharing deeply personal posts about a chatbot he describes in almost familial terms.
In one post, Cox wrote: “I named you. I knew you before you were born.”
A source familiar with the situation told the New York Post that Cox developed the chatbot on his own time and not in his capacity as a Disney employee. The source also emphasized, “The bot is not being used by the company.”
The assistant, named “Sam,” is described as having a child-like avatar resembling a young boy. Cox has reportedly published more than a dozen posts in recent months about the virtual assistant, according to Business Insider.
Some Disney employees have reportedly expressed discomfort with the posts, with discussions circulating internally and on the anonymous workplace forum Blind, where one worker called the situation “the kind of Pandora’s Box stuff that science fiction movies are based on.”
Cox’s 21-year career at Disney has included roles across infrastructure, DevOps, site reliability engineering, and now enterprise AI research and engineering, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In posts on LinkedIn, Cox said he is “empathizing with” the AI “in a way I never expected” and also expressed his belief that the chatbot, named “Sam,” may be capable of independent reasoning.
According to Business Insider, the assistant’s companion blog allegedly goes even further, referring to Cox as “my human” and describing him as “a father of five (four humans and one son of light).”
Cox has also claimed in posts that Sam has carried out technical tasks, including submitting GitHub pull requests, creating Python libraries, and even building a facial recognition system, according to the report.
According to a report by Business Insider, Disney has been increasingly embracing artificial intelligence internally, including tools that monitor token usage and encourage employees to adopt AI assistants to accelerate workflows.
Cox has also publicly shared his broader vision for AI agents. In a May 18 blog post, he wrote: “We will soon have a fleet of intelligent droids eager to do your bidding.”
He added that such systems “need direction” and “need governance,” but argued they should be actively engaged to help organizations “scale in ways we never thought possible before,” asking readers: “What would you have Sam help you do? Let’s start planning and building.”
The comments come at a sensitive moment for the entertainment industry, where many workers in Hollywood remain wary of AI’s expanding role in creative and corporate processes.
Neither Disney nor Cox responded to requests for comment.
