Discontinuing Sora
OpenAI today said that it is ending support for its Sora AI video app just six months after it initially launched.
The announcement comes days after leaked news of an OpenAI all-hands meeting in which company executives reportedly said they were refocusing on business and productivity applications rather than being “distracted by side quests,” as OpenAI head of applications Fidji Simo reportedly put it.
Disney has now ended its partnership with OpenAI, which included plans for the media conglomerate to take a $1 billion stake in the artificial-intelligence company led by CEO Sam Altman.
Sora was kind of fun for a week or two. But, contrary to the above, nothing anyone made with Sora mattered. It was just a very (very) expensive lark.
It will be interesting if they release details, but my immediate assumption was that it was very expensive to run and not very strategic for them.
Guess what? That was written almost exactly six months ago.
It is because it is expensive without any clear reason for it to exist other than because OpenAI wants to be everywhere.
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In a tweet, OpenAI has confirmed it is shutting down Sora. But, while it originally announced “We’re saying goodbye to Sora”, it changed that about an hour later to read “We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app“, emphasis mine. The Journal has not changed its report to retract claims about shutting down the platform altogether, though, while OpenAI continues to promote Sora API pricing.
As it turns out, much like the Studio Ghibli situation before it, it was a mere viral moment in time. OpenAI is great at creating these, but they’re fleeting.
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But what’s really wild is shafting Disney in the process. I mean, they’re without question the most important entertainment and content company in the world. And OpenAI seemingly did them dirty. The fact that Disney is no longer looking to do the major investment which sure seemed like a good idea to them – checks notes – just three months ago, seems to say a lot.
Previously:
Update (2026-03-30): Hayden Field:
Sora seems to have taken up a massive amount of compute without the financial return to justify it. Industry sources told The Verge that it’s been lagging behind competing video-generation models.
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Sora started off strong in October with about 4.8 million worldwide downloads and 6.1 million in November, followed by a sharp drop-off in December (3.2 million) and in the following months: 2.1 million in January, 1.4 million in February, and just 1.1 million month-to-date for March.
“What’s most notable about it is dropping off while they’re expanding into new markets — that should be driving growth,” Shah said, adding, “You should’ve seen an uptick in that. Even if nobody else in the US downloaded it again, there should be some growth, presumably.”
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Everybody is an expert in hindsight.
Gruber, previously: "I don’t want to predict if Sora is a fad or has staying power, but so far I enjoy it in a way that I haven’t enjoyed a new social network in years."
Gruber, now: "It’s hard to see how anyone thought Sora would have staying power"
I'm singling out Gruber because I remembered what he said when it came out, but this applies to all of these fricken people to whom everything is super obvious once it has already happened.
"It is because it is expensive without any clear reason for it to exist other than because OpenAI wants to be everywhere."
Right. And if people had kept using it and OpenAI would have monetized it with ads, it would have been super obvious how smart they were at designing it, unlike these morons at Meta.
I also chuckled at Grubers 180 on this. BUT.. it's still valuable to do a post mortem on things once the results are in.
Looking at it now I can see how a platform where EVERYONE is a creator (as opposed to the traditional 10:90 relationship) will probably lead to a cesspool of narcissists that exect to get fame and money by pressing a "remix" button on the top trending post.
It will probably never work, and it took this public experiment to see that.
