OpenAI shuts down Sora: the viral AI video app that couldn't justify its costs

OpenAI announced the shutdown of Sora, its AI-powered short video generation app, just six months after launch — despite reaching one million downloads in under five days.

"We're saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you," the company wrote on X. "What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing."

Why did they close Sora?

OpenAI is reeling in costs as it seeks to justify its $730 billion valuation and set the stage for a potential IPO. The company is retreating from ambitious projects and abandoning plans to build its own massive data centers, preferring to buy cloud capacity instead.

On the same day, OpenAI also scrapped its "Instant Checkout" feature and confirmed plans to merge its browser, ChatGPT app, and Codex into a single desktop super app.

The Disney deal that never closed

In December 2025, Disney had announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI to let users create videos with its characters on Sora. However, the deal never closed. Disney said it respects OpenAI's decision to "exit the video generation business."

Focus on enterprise, not consumers

Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, made the new direction clear in an all-hands meeting: the company is "orienting aggressively" toward high-productivity enterprise use cases — the same territory where Anthropic has built a strong business with Claude.