Disney reveals plans for using AI to watch its Animal Kingdom

September 24, 2026, 5:02 PM · Disney's plans for using more AI in its theme parks continues with a new patent application this week.

In "Techniques for Automatically Monitoring Animal Behaviors and Generating Notifications," Disney describes plans for using cameras and machine learning to keep track of animals in a designated area, such as a zoo display.

Disney employs a zoological team that looks after the animals housed at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World in Florida. But even with the assistance of security cameras, human eyes can see only so much. That is why theme parks have used automated monitoring systems for years.

When I worked on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, we had an automated block zone control system - just like any other modern roller coaster - that would stop the ride if its sensors were flagged improperly. But we also had security cameras that allowed us to see every lift and on the ride, too - in case we needed to manually stop the ride because we saw something improper that the automated system would not or did not catch.

Disney's proposed animal monitoring system extends the capabilities of automated monitoring. It proposes using an AI-driven machine learning for its monitoring system, to identify where animals should be and how they should be moving and behaving. If the system then notices something wrong, it would send a warning to whomever would be in charge of addressing that.

Such a system could do more than issue warnings, too. It could be implemented to send notices to guests when animals are active and present in viewing areas. That way, there's no more guesswork before walking over to try to see if some animals are out and about. And it could do that additional, pro-active customer service work without taking away from its safety and health monitoring responsibilities.

The idea is that an AI monitoring system could watch a wider area of animal activity more acutely than a human team could do alone. The question is - as it always is with AI implementations - is a company doing this to assist and extend its human resources, or to replace them? The former is just the latest step in the long journey of automation in the workplace. The latter is a shortcut that usually ends up costing a company money... and more.

Here is the full patent application, if you want to dive into the weeds.

In another patent application this week, Disney has updated its "Display System for Producing Wide-Angle, Retroreflective Real Images." Think of this as a next-generation Pepper's Ghost effect - one that does not seem to be limited to displaying its "hologram" behind glass or some other clear surface. Disney's proposed system uses multiple reflectors and display stations to seemingly project a real image into space in front of viewers. Check out the details here.

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