OpenAI Says Goodbye to Sora App and Developer API

OpenAI has confirmed it is closing its Sora app and its developer API. Sora is the company's artificial intelligence tool that turns text descriptions into short videos. The shutdown was announced by the official Sora Team on social media, though an exact closing date has not yet been shared.

In a brief farewell message, the Sora Team thanked users and creators who built a community around the app. The team promised more information soon, including shutdown timelines and details on how users can save their work before the app goes offline.

Sora launched publicly in late 2024 and quickly went viral for producing strikingly realistic AI-generated videos. The app allowed users to create, edit, share, and discover videos made entirely from text prompts. Despite the early excitement, it struggled to hold on to users. Downloads fell sharply in the months after launch, and spending on the platform dropped significantly.

Running the app was also very expensive. Video generation requires large amounts of computing power, and with growing competition from tools offered by Google and Meta, OpenAI appears to have decided the standalone app was no longer worth sustaining.

OpenAI has not given an official reason for the closure. However, the company is widely reported to be shifting focus toward coding tools, business clients, and its main product, ChatGPT. The Sora technology itself is not expected to disappear entirely. Video generation may eventually be built into ChatGPT, similar to how OpenAI's image tool already works inside the platform.

The shutdown also ended a major reported partnership with Disney, which had been collaborating on Sora-linked projects. The Disney team reportedly learned about the closure with very little notice.

Public reaction has been mixed. Some users expressed disappointment, while others welcomed the news, citing concerns about deepfakes and misleading AI-generated content the app had made possible.

Anyone who has created videos on Sora should save their content now while the app remains accessible.