• OpenAI is shutting down its text-to-video platform Sora, which launched in 2024.
• The company will discontinue apps and services, while continuing video generation research for robotics training and simulation purposes.
• Closure reflects strategic refocus ahead of IPO, amid high costs and declining downloads.

OpenAI is closing Sora, the A.I. text-to-video generator that the San Francisco-based company launched in 2024 to the dismay of creatives and film professionals who worried its ability to readily produce high-quality video would undermine their expertise.

The company is shutting both its Sora consumer app and its internet service that was used by filmmakers and creatives to generate videos. In a statement, OpenAI noted that though its public-facing services were disappearing, the company would continue to use video generation as a way of training robots (videos’ simulation of the real world make them a useful tool for teaching robots).

“We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app,” the company posted on X. “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 company that created ChatGPT released the platform in a bid to gain a share of the short-form video market dominated by the likes of TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram Reels. Momentum picked up with the unveiling of Sora 2 in September last year and the closure marks a somewhat abrupt about-face. Back in December, OpenAI signed a three-year licensing agreement with Disney that allowed Sora users to generate videos with iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse and Yoda.

Sora Selects artists at the New York screening at Metrograph. Photo courtesy of Sora.

Earlier in 2025, the company flexed its art world potential with Sora Selects, a program that invited 10 emerging artists to showcase the tool’s potential. As the program lead told Artnet News, the platform was handling 10 generations every second and working empower artists in building a “new experimental art form.”

Although OpenAI did not explain its decision to close Sora, the move appears to be part of efforts to consolidate and refocus the company ahead of an initial public offering that could take place later this year. Backed by Amazon, Nvidia, and Softbank, OpenAI raised $110 billion in investment last month and with the company facing the costly prospect of expanding its data centers in the coming years, Sora became a casualty. The social video app was a resource intensive endeavor with little revenue and though it topped the Apple App Store in the weeks after its launch, its downloads have dropped rapidly in 2026.