OpenAI announces the shutdown of the Sora video app, ending the $1 billion partnership with Disney

OpenAI officially announced that it will shut down its once-popular Sora video generation app as of local time on March 24, and will also end its milestone collaboration agreement with Disney worth $1 billion.

It is reported that Sora’s iOS application, API interface service, and the Sora.com website will all stop operating, with a detailed timeline to be released soon. Media reports say that the Sora research team will continue to focus on world model research to advance robotics technology and help people tackle physical tasks in the real world.

Information published by the Sora team on social platforms.

Industry analysts say that Sora’s shutdown reflects a strategic shift at OpenAI. As competition in the AI industry grows increasingly intense, pressure from rivals such as Anthropic and Google continues to mount, and OpenAI is prioritizing resources toward more profit-potential areas such as capital, chips, and enterprise products.

Running video generation services requires massive computing resources and electricity, which is a major expense for any company. Media reports say that Sora’s operations have already had a noticeable impact on the allocation of compute power to other teams.

Looking back at Sora’s development history, its rise and fall is truly hard to watch. In early 2024, when OpenAI first launched Sora, it shocked the entire tech industry. The software, which can generate high-quality, feature-film-length videos based on text prompts, triggered an industry-wide tremor. Sora’s release directly prompted many AI companies to accelerate the rollout of their own AI video generation models.

In September 2025, OpenAI created a standalone Sora application, allowing users to integrate themselves into short videos. OpenAI had envisioned using AI video technology to build a social network for the AI era around sharing content. However, the good times didn’t last. According to TechCrunch, by this January, Sora’s downloads had plunged by 45%. Although some employees on the Sora team were still surprised when they learned about these changes on Tuesday morning, just one day earlier, OpenAI had published an article about Sora’s safety standards.

Sora’s shutdown also signals the end of a major collaboration between OpenAI and Disney. Earlier, the two companies announced they had reached a three-year licensing agreement that would allow Sora users to generate AI short videos using more than 200 iconic characters owned by Disney, such as Mickey Mouse. The deal was seen as an important milestone for collaboration between the tech industry and Hollywood, and it also raised concerns among content creators about the possibility that AI could replace actors and creators.

In a post on social media, the Sora team wrote, “We’re going to say goodbye to Sora… We know this news is disappointing.” This AI video product that once shook the entire industry now comes to a poignant end.

Source: Pengpai Technology