Odaily Planet Daily reports that OpenAI has announced the shutdown of its AI video generation platform, Sora, and its related APIs, redirecting resources toward "world simulation research to advance robotics." This decision also halts a previously announced $1 billion investment partnership with Disney centered on Sora.
OpenAI has stated that, as the company continues to focus on its AGI roadmap and the computing power required to support agent AI capabilities, it has decided to discontinue Sora as a consumer-facing application and API. However, the AI image generator integrated into ChatGPT remains unaffected. The company will announce a timeline for shutting down the application and API, as well as a plan for preserving users' creations, in the near future.
Reports indicate that Sora’s operational costs amount to approximately $15 million per day. OpenAI first launched the Sora text-to-video model in February 2024, followed by the release of the more advanced Sora 2 and a standalone mobile app featuring social video streaming and user "cameo" functionality. In December 2024, OpenAI announced a three-year agreement with Disney to license approximately 250 Disney characters for AI video generation, including characters from franchises such as Frozen, Star Wars, and Marvel.
Disney expressed respect for OpenAI's decision to exit the video generation business and will continue exploring other ways to collaborate with generative AI.