OpenAI has announced that it is shutting down its video-generation platform Sora and stepping away from AI video work, a move that also ends a planned partnership with Disney and signals a major shift in how the company plans to spend its resources.
In making the announcement, OpenAI confirmed that both the public Sora app and its professional video tools are being discontinued as part of a wider internal refocus. Video features tied to its models won’t continue, marking a retreat from the tools that users relied on to create the sort of AI video clips that have flooded social media in recent months.
Instead, OpenAI will be shifting its attention towards robotics and autonomous software systems capable of carrying out tasks with minimal supervision. The same techniques used to train video models could be redirected toward machines that interact with physical environments.
Interest in Sora surged early on because it produced short clips that looked far more convincing than earlier AI video tools. Users could generate scenes from text prompts, remix clips, and share them in a built-in feed that resembled social media platforms.
The cost of Sora soaring
Keeping the system running turned out to be expensive however, and questions about long-term revenue never really went away. Analysts pointed to the high computing demands required to generate video as a continuing financial strain.
Safety and copyright worries also followed the technology closely as its capabilities improved. Media companies and rights holders watched carefully, concerned about how easily recognizable characters or styles could appear in generated footage.
In shuttering Sora, OpenAI is stepping away from a planned $1bn arrangement with The Walt Disney Company that would have allowed licensed characters to appear in generated content. The agreement had been seen as a test case for how large studios might cooperate with AI developers. No money had changed hands before the deal came to an end.
A Disney spokesperson said “we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere”.
Financial pressure likely influenced the timing of the move. The shutdown message was also shared publicly in a post on X that confirmed the platform’s fate to its disappointed user base.
“We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing. We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work. — The Sora Team”
We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.
We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on…
— Sora (@soraofficialapp) March 24, 2026
Image-generation tools inside ChatGPT will remain available, and the company said its future work will lean more heavily into productivity-focused systems and automation tools rather than creative video platforms.
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