After months of work, prototypes and developments, on March 29 the robot of the character Olaf, from the movie “Frozen”, will arrive at Disneyland Paris. This is one of the main attractions of the inauguration of Disney Adventure World, the company’s second park in the city – previously called Walt Disney Studios – and aspires to mark a new era in the innovation strategy of Disney Experiences.

Created by Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development in collaboration with the film’s original animators at Walt Disney Animation Studios, the robot is autonomous and walks and moves freely. To do this, The Walt Disney Company has worked with Nvidia and Google DeepMind on the technical aspects of the device. Thus, the company assures that it is the result of the combination of technology, narrative and collaboration, united to give life to what is seen on the screen.

Disney engineers have focused on making reality what the animators created and that captivated the public. In this sense, he ensures that from his movements to his appearance, every gesture and detail is designed to reflect both Olaf’s appearance and personality: lively, curious and fun. He assures that the robot is one of the most expressive and realistic characters ever created.

The robot was officially presented in November 2025 by Bruce Vaughn, President and Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Imagineering, and Natacha Rafalski, President of Disneyland Paris, in the theme park itself. He has also been present at NVIDIA GTC, the company’s artificial intelligence conference for developers, researchers and business leaders. The robotic Olaf accompanied Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, on stage.

As explained by Walt Disney Imagineering, the basis of development is deep reinforcement learning, which allows robotic characters to learn to imitate the movement provided by the artist in simulation. This has allowed engineers to quickly iterate between mechanical design and animation, and added to artificial intelligence, a high level of realism has been achieved.

The robot is based on Nvidia’s Jetson computing platform, and has been worked on a new open source simulation framework called Newton, and a simulator called Kamino. Additionally, the Omniverse real-time simulation and collaboration computing platform has also been included in the development process.

Olaf is not the first robot to be part of a Disney theme park. The company already had BDX droids, interactive bipedal robots created by Walt Disney Imagineering and that can be seen in Galaxy’s Edge, the areas dedicated to the ‘Star Wars’ saga at Walt Disney World Resort (Orlando) and Disneyland Resort (California).

The difference, however, is that these are robotic characters, while Olaf is an animated character, with a personality and a specific storytelling, something more difficult to recreate in the physical world. Thus, Olaf has a “snow” suit that deforms and moves differently than the rigid shells of the BDX droids, and he can fully articulate his mouth, eyes, and carrot nose (removable). And, above all, Olaf can talk and converse.

The company recognizes that when giving life to an animated character using advanced robotics, the main challenge has been to remain faithful to the vision of the character created by the filmmakers. “As with everything at Disney, we always start from the story. We think about how we want the visitor to feel and what kind of emotional experience we want them to have.“said Kyle Laughlin, Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Walt Disney Imagineering, a few months ago when the robot was introduced.”The technology needs to be advanced enough that our visitors don’t notice it, so they don’t think about all the work and technology that went into creating something real, but instead focus on having an emotional experience with the characters they care about.”.

Olaf’s robot will star in the “Arendelle Bay” show in “World of Frozen”, the immersive area dedicated to the film that will be part of the renovated Disney Adventure World. The robot will appear on a boat in a lagoon, demonstrating its balance and coherent movement capabilities.
According to the company, he will also make special limited-time appearances at World of Frozen” at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort.

Olaf represents Walt Disney Imagineering’s first next-generation robotic character. It combines mobility, personality and AI training in a way that Disney has not implemented before in its parks, which presents a new path in its entertainment offering. What’s more, the company would be considering the possibility of developing new robotic characters with other of its franchises, whether from Disney, Marvel or Star Wars.
In this sense, the company imagines the creation of complete environments where robots can move and interact with visitors, which would take immersion in its theme parks to a new level.