OpenAI Is Shutting Down Sora, Its Video-Generating App

The company plans to keep the underlying Sora research team and technology, but it will no longer run Sora as a standalone consumer app or public API.

OpenAI is shutting down its once much-hyped Sora AI video-generating app and related services just 15 months after its public launch. The company announced the decision on March 24, saying it will retire the consumer app, Sora.com, and the Sora API. Later, OpenAI will share precise timelines and instructions to help users save their existing clips.

Sora quickly rose to the top of app store charts, competing with Google's Veo 3 and driving a wave of AI-generated short videos. But usage and paid subscriptions reportedly dropped in recent months, even as operating costs remained high. Professionals across the entertainment industry have also raised concerns about AI's ability to replicate real people's likenesses and intellectual property.

The shutdown will render ...