What's Going On? OpenAI Major Reversal: Sora AI Video Application to Discontinue Service

OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it will cease operating its once-popular Sora AI video app. The company stated that this move aims to refocus business priorities and optimize human and computing resource allocation.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced at an employee meeting on Tuesday that the company will gradually shut down products based on its video model. In addition to consumer-facing applications, OpenAI will also discontinue the Sora version for developers and will no longer support video features in ChatGPT. This marks a significant reversal for the Sora project.

Refocusing business priorities and optimizing resource allocation for computing power

In fact, the user engagement for this video app has been steadily declining. The shutdown of this resource-intensive AI application comes as OpenAI is expected to go public in a few months.

The Sora project consumed a large amount of computing power. Facing increasingly fierce competition from Anthropic and Google, OpenAI is prioritizing funding, chips, and enterprise-level products over continuing to invest in experimental projects.

By reallocating computing resources from Sora, OpenAI can redistribute this power to more profitable tasks such as code generation, reasoning, or text generation.

Recently, Anthropic’s AI systems have surged in popularity among industry-leading companies and software engineers. Anthropic’s flagship AI model, the Claude series, has abandoned image and video generation products, instead focusing limited computing resources on text and code generation.

According to reports, OpenAI executives have recently indicated that they are adjusting the company’s focus because they realize it is impossible to “do everything at once.”

An OpenAI spokesperson said in an interview: “We have decided to terminate the consumer-facing Sora app and related API services. As our R&D focus shifts and computing demands grow, the Sora development team will continue to focus on world simulation research to advance robotics technology and help solve real-world tasks.”

The iOS app, API, and Sora.com website services will all be shut down, but specific timelines have not yet been announced. The company said it will soon disclose the shutdown schedule for the app and API, as well as how users can save their generated AI videos.

“We’re saying goodbye to Sora,” the company posted on X. “We will share more information soon, including timelines for the app and API shutdowns and how to save your creations.”

On X, OpenAI also expressed gratitude to Sora users and admitted, “We know this news is disappointing.”

Despite shutting down Sora, the company stated that ChatGPT’s AI image generation features will continue to be available.

In a statement to the media, OpenAI said: “We weigh daily how to allocate computing resources to research, product releases, and inference services, prioritizing high-value uses that best support our mission.”

“Trash Content” and Copyright Disputes

AI video applications, capable of generating videos almost in real-time, have amazed the tech industry but have also faced criticism for making it harder to distinguish real from fake images.

A large number of AI-generated videos from Sora and other developers have heightened concerns about the so-called AI “trash content” flood—critics point out that these low-quality or deliberately fake videos are filling the internet.

As the developer of ChatGPT, OpenAI launched the Sora model in February 2024, sparking intense discussions about content creation, filmmaking, and the future of media in the AI era.

In September 2025, OpenAI released a more powerful standalone app, Sora 2, which included a new feature allowing users to create “cameo shots” of themselves, friends, and others.

At that time, the company stated: “With Sora 2, we are directly moving toward what we believe could be the ‘GPT-3.5 moment’ in the video field.”

The app quickly topped the Apple App Store charts, with downloads surpassing one million at a pace even faster than ChatGPT. However, reports indicate that by January of this year, downloads had plummeted 45%.

Sora also sparked controversy. In 2025, some users generated videos disrespecting Martin Luther King Jr., prompting OpenAI to temporarily ban users from creating videos using the civil rights leader’s image.

Additionally, videos featuring popular characters like Uncle McDonald’s also raised copyright concerns.

In December last year, Disney announced a licensing agreement with OpenAI allowing users to create videos using hundreds of characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars.

However, this deal has now fallen through. According to insiders, OpenAI is ending its partnership with Disney, and the two parties have never exchanged funds.

Disney stated in a Tuesday release: “We appreciate the constructive collaboration and experience gained from our partnership, and will continue engaging with various AI platforms to explore new ways to responsibly embrace new technologies—respecting intellectual property and creators’ rights—to better serve fans.”