OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, is now shutting down Sora, an AI-video generation app, less than two years after its creation. In addition to the shutdown, their $1 billion partnership with Disney has been cancelled.
Before the collapse
Sora was released in 2024 and gained traction over the high-quality videos it was able to produce; however, the monetary gains weren’t sustainable.
In the same time period, ChatGPT made $1.9 billion in global net in-app revenue while Sora made $1.4m. “The platform struggled to prevent the creation of non-consensual imagery and realistic misinformation, not to mention major copyright infringement,” Forrester analyst Thomas Husson said in an interview. Keeping Sora would become risky due to potential lawsuits.
OpenAI has stated that it discontinued Sora in order to focus on other projects such as robotics which would help solve real-world physical tasks. A spokesperson from The Walt Disney Company said, “we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere.”
OpenAI is shutting down the Sora app and the internet-based platform that professionals install to generate videos. It’s likely that OpenAI will no longer develop video-generation tools. Instead, they’re focusing on developing “agentic” technology that will complete tasks with little human oversight.
ChatGPT’s image-creation tools won’t be affected by Sora’s closure.
Sources: BBC, Tech Crunch,
