OpenAI has pulled the plug on its AI video-generation app, Sora.
“We’re saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you,” the company said in a statement, hours after the Wall Street Journal published a report about the plans.
OpenAI told the BBC that it discontinued Sora to pay more attention to other developments, such as robotics “that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks”.
The BBC also reported that OpenAI will also wind down its content partnership with entertainment giant Disney, bringing an end to a short-lived collaboration that had signalled closer ties between AI platforms and major studios.
Initially released in December 2024, Sora quickly rose to the top of Apple’s App Store after launching as a standalone app in September last year.
Sora 2, the updated model powering it, impressed users with its ability to generate videos that resemble professional studio output using nothing more than a text prompt.
However, it also quickly demonstrated an ability to skirt copyright protections at a scale that would unsettle major studios.
Users quickly began generating clips featuring recognisable characters from major franchises, including Nintendo properties such as Mario, Pikachu, and Princess Peach, prompting questions about how the model was trained and what safeguards were in place.
In Japan, industry bodies and rights holders lodged formal objections, warning that unregulated use of models like Sora could undermine both the country’s content industry and broader creative ecosystem.
At the same time, Sora sparked concerns about harm, with users generating realistic clips depicting violence, fabricated war footage, and other disturbing scenarios that appeared to breach the platform’s own safeguards.
