OpenAI shuts down Sora app; Disney exits $1-billion deal

OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it is discontinuing Sora, its AI video generation app, just six months after the standalone platform launched. The company said it is shuttering the app to focus on other priorities.  OpenAI has yet to say when the app and its related API will become unavailable, promising to share those details at a later date.

"We’re saying goodbye to Sora. 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," the app's X post read.

"We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work," the post further added.

Multiple reports state that the closure comes ahead of an expected initial public stock offering from OpenAI. OpenAI is consolidating its product lineup, combining its Atlas web browser, ChatGPT app, and Codex coding app into a single desktop super app, and on the same day as the Sora announcement, also discontinued its Instant Checkout shopping feature. 

An OpenAI spokesperson framed the decision as a resource reallocation, saying the Sora research team would “continue to focus on world simulation research to advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.”

What is OpenAI's Sora?

Sora is a text-to-video model developed by OpenAI. The model generates short video clips based on prompts and can also extend existing short videos. OpenAI first publicly previewed the technology in February 2024, with the first generation released publicly for ChatGPT Plus and Pro users in the US and Canada in December 2024.

The reaction to the February 2024 preview was immediate and dramatic. The text-to-video model could generate realistic footage including specific camera movements, vivid background detail, complex sequences from a single prompt.

A second generation, Sora 2, was released to select users in the US and Canada at the end of September 2025, and came with a standalone iOS app.  When it launched, Sora gained viral popularity, surpassing one million downloads in under a week and a half, reaching that milestone faster than ChatGPT, and for a period was the top free app on the App Store.

The app’s arrival rattled many in the entertainment industry, who quickly expressed concerns that the model’s ability to rapidly generate high-quality video from text would displace human creators.  The app launched with effectively no restrictions on using copyrighted material or real people’s likenesses, which immediately drew backlash. OpenAI backtracked within days, tightening IP controls and building in opt-out mechanisms for rights holders.

Despite the initial frenzy, user interest faded quickly. Data from analytics firm Appfigures suggested the app was seeing successive month-over-month declines in both new installs and user spending. In December alone, Sora reportedly saw a 32% decline in new downloads from November. 

Disney’s $1 billion bet is off the table

Three months ago, Disney inked a deal with OpenAI, where under a three-year licensing agreement, Sora would have been able to generate user-prompted videos from a set of more than 200 masked, animated, or creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. Disney+ was also set to add a curated selection of Sora-generated videos, and Disney planned to take a $1 billion stake in OpenAI.

A source familiar with the matter apparently told The Hollywood Reporter that Disney is also exiting the deal it signed with OpenAI last year, in which it pledged to invest $1 billion in the company and agreed to license some of its characters for use in Sora.

 A Disney spokesperson too told NBC News that the company respected OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business, adding that it would “continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators.”

How Sora users reacted to the news

After Sora posted on X (formerly Twitter), the user reaction was split. Certain users praised the realism the application offered, saying that OpenAI should not have rolled back the app. “The first week with Sora was one of the best times we had in the AI video space. Thanks for that, it was epic!” a user said.

Another user said, “It was truly magical before they nerfed it. Still fun, amazing technology and a great model that someone should buy and monetize properly.”

Meanwhile, users who were not impressed by Sora were pleased that it was getting shut down. “The product became completely unusable about a week after I started using it. I was getting copyright warnings when I'd ask for things like "A cat walking down the street" Absolute fumble of a product that could have been great,” a user said.

With the rise in AI-generated videos and images, people who were disgruntled by such content cheered the news. “I see this as great news! Less AI slop content!” an X user said.