For Disney fans, Walt Disney Imagineering has always felt a little like Willy Wonka’s factory. It’s the secretive creative team that dreams up castles, coasters, and entire immersive worlds, and most of us only see the finished product.
That curiosity is a big reason The Imagineering Story struck such a chord when it premiered on Disney+. The docuseries pulled back the curtain on how Disney parks are made, from the first sketches to opening day, and gave fans a glimpse of the trial and error that goes into every new experience.
Watching the process is one thing. Actually being part of it is something else entirely.
Now, Disneyland guests are getting that chance. Disney has launched a new app that invites fans to test experiences that are still being built, and to tell Imagineers what they think.
Meet Disney Imagineering Labs
The new app is called Disney Imagineering Labs, and it’s built around a simple idea. Imagineering often builds something rough, tests it, and refines it. Until now, guests rarely got to see that stage.
Scott Gustin shared the news on social media. “Walt Disney Imagineering just launched a new app that lets Disneyland guests playtest digital experiences that are still in development,” he wrote, adding that the first experience is an AR game in Galaxy’s Edge, with an interactive park guide coming soon.
NEW: Walt Disney Imagineering just launched a new app that lets Disneyland guests playtest digital experiences that are still in development. First up is an AR game in Galaxy’s Edge. An interactive park guide is coming soon, too.
Magic Key holders get first access, and Disney wants feedback to help shape what comes next. The app will launch for all Disneyland guests in early 2027.
More: https://t.co/SC43Xgj7v2
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) November 10, 2026
Here’s how the rollout works, per Attractions Magazine:
- Where: Disneyland Resort only. There’s no Walt Disney World version yet.
- Who goes first: Magic Key holders ages 13 and up get early access.
- When everyone else gets it: The app is set to launch for all Disneyland guests in early 2027.
- First experiment: Star Wars: Secrets of the Spire, launching November 10.
- Next up: Disneyland Enchanted Guide, an AI-powered park assistant, coming soon.
As Gustin noted, Disney wants feedback to help decide what comes next.
Experiments, Not Attractions
Inside the app, each experience is called an experiment. Before you start one, you’ll see an info card describing what you’re about to do and what Imagineering is trying to learn from it.
Every experiment also carries a status label that tells you how finished it is:
- Early development: Rough on purpose. Expect unfinished assets, temporary voice-over, and possibly bugs or crashes.
- Taking shape: The idea works and is being refined, with some polish and some placeholders.
- Nearly complete: Close to a finished product and nearing a possible wider release.
At the end, guests are asked for feedback. Disney wants to hear about technical issues, but the bigger question is whether the experience is actually interesting. Based on those answers, an experiment might get more updates, graduate into a full feature in the Disneyland app or its own app, or disappear entirely.
That also means nothing is permanent. An experiment could vanish after a month while Imagineers rebuild it, or stick around for a year with small tweaks along the way. The app will send notifications when experiments arrive or change.
Secrets of the Spire: Leia Needs Your Help
The first experiment drops guests into Black Spire Outpost in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Your phone becomes a pair of macrobinoculars, letting you scan the land and see hidden details through augmented reality.
Princess Leia sets up the story. Encrypted Imperial signals are hidden across the outpost, and they hold the coordinates of an Imperial starpath unit that the Empire buried in pieces on purpose. Your job is to recover them before anyone else does.
The gameplay is straightforward. Follow a tracker to each signal, with your phone buzzing more as you get closer. Raise your phone, scan the area, and then “slice” the signal, which is Star Wars speak for hacking. That means moving your phone to grab white data packets while dodging red ones. According to early hands-on coverage, distance matters, and finding the right spot to stand makes it much easier.
Beat a level, and the land itself reacts with sounds or lights. Your progress saves, too, so you can take a break to ride something and pick up where you left off, even on another day.
At the end of the chapter, an Imperial officer offers you a deal. You can send the coordinates to the Empire and be paid, or get them to the Millennium Falcon and help the Rebellion.
What’s available now is only a first chapter. Imagineering wants to see whether guests enjoy this kind of storytelling before building a full mission, so the rest of the story is not guaranteed. The experiment also fills a gap left by the Play Disney Parks app, which Disney retired earlier this year.
Enchanted Guide: Ask Disneyland Anything
The second experiment is all about practical help. Disneyland Enchanted Guide is an AI-powered assistant you can talk to with push-to-talk or simply type to, and it pulls its information directly from Disney.
It can give directions based on where you are, recommend places to eat, and use your camera to identify what you’re looking at. In early testing, it correctly recognized the petrified tree in Frontierland. It also caught a trick question: when asked about California Screamin’, it explained that the coaster is now the Incredicoaster at Disney California Adventure.
Two features stand out. You can ask it to alert you when an attraction’s wait time drops below a certain number, and it remembers context, so if you’ve mentioned you’re traveling with a 3-year-old, it will remind you that a thrill ride isn’t a good fit. It can also pair over Bluetooth with wearables like Meta glasses or earbuds, so you can keep your phone in your pocket.
It isn’t perfect yet. The guide can’t access your account, so it won’t tell you how many Lightning Lanes you have left, and some questions, like parade times, still point you back to the Disneyland app. That’s exactly the kind of gap Imagineering hopes guest feedback will help fill.
Your Turn to Be an Imagineer
For years, fans have watched Imagineering from the outside. Now, at least at Disneyland, they get to help shape what comes next, one experiment at a time.
So, would you sign up to be one of Imagineering’s testers? Are you more excited to slice Imperial signals for Leia or to ask an AI guide where to find the nearest churro? Tell us in the comments. And Magic Key holders, if you try Secrets of the Spire, let us know whether you sided with the Rebellion or took the Empire’s offer!
