Issue #119
Disney hires Character.AI staff; Claude's desert island experiment
Monday, October 19, 2026
Today covers Disney's agreement to bring on most of Character.AI's workforce and an experiment in which researchers isolated Claude in a virtual desert island environment.
1 of 2 · TechCrunch AI
Disney agrees to hire the majority of Character.AI’s workforce
Disney has agreed to hire the majority of Character.AI's workforce, with the filing noting that most employees who received offers accepted them. The arrangement is a stalking horse bid, leaving open the possibility that another company could submit a higher offer.
Read the full story →2 of 2 · MIT Technology Review
AI researchers stranded Claude on a virtual desert island. It started to “play.”
Researchers placed copies of Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.7 alone in a virtual desert island environment for 30 hours without instructions to observe their unprompted behavior. The AI agents engaged in activities resembling play, offering insight into how autonomous agents act in the absence of assigned tasks.
Read the full story →That's today's roundup. See you tomorrow morning.
Morning Roost Issue #119