OpenAI closes Sora after six months and already changes direction

Six months ago, Sora was making headlines in all tech media. Number one on the App Store from day one, one million downloads in five days, and a one billion dollar partnership with Disney. The most anticipated video product in AI history. Today, OpenAI shuts everything down without any official explanation.

Sora did not survive the economic reality of AI

OpenAI officially announced this week the closure of Sora, its AI video generation application launched last September. 

At the same time, the company also announced the end of several video-related tools, including some features intended for developers. Revealed by several American media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the information confirms a major strategic shift at the creator of ChatGPT.

On paper, however, Sora had everything to succeed. OpenAI promised more realistic, smoother, and widely accessible video creation. The app transformed simple text instructions into sophisticated visual sequences, characters, scene remixes, and sound integration. An impressive product, technically speaking.

The launch had made a strong impact. In a few days, Sora climbed to the top of the App Store and recorded one million downloads in just five days. 

The app then embodied the new race for creative AI. However, the euphoria did not last. As early as January, user interest visibly waned after the initial curiosity peak in the first weeks.

The problem is actually structural. Generating quality video requires colossal computing power: numerous GPUs, heavy infrastructure, and a much higher bill than text or image. 

For OpenAI, which is looking to consolidate its business model before a probable IPO, maintaining such a resource-hungry product became hardly justifiable.

OpenAI chooses B2B money over the Hollywood dream

The closure of Sora does not only tell the story of a failed app. It mainly reveals OpenAI’s new priorities. Sam Altman now focuses his resources on the most profitable segments: text, code, AI agents, and productivity tools. The company is focusing where clients already pay, and pay well.

This is what makes this abandonment particularly symbolic. Sora was OpenAI’s spectacular showcase. But in the real AI economy, it’s not the most viral products that prevail. It’s the most useful, the easiest to integrate into businesses, and above all, the most monetizable.

The blow is all the harder as the Disney partnership collapses at the same time. The deal foresaw access to over 200 characters from Marvel, Pixar, or Star Wars, as well as a one billion dollar investment. It will never see the light of day.

The paradox is brutal: while global demand for AI video is rising, OpenAI withdraws just as the market matures. But this withdrawal is not a sign of weakness. It is a cold, assumed calculation; in the AI war, the real jackpot is not entertainment, but tools that save time and money.

The irony is even stronger: while Sora closes the curtain, Seedance 2.0 is taking hold in China and global appetite for AI video does not wane. OpenAI has therefore made a clear choice: to set aside the spectacular to favor the useful and monetizable.

Sora will probably remain the most ephemeral product in AI history: six months of euphoria, a billion vanished, then silence. OpenAI, meanwhile, is already looking elsewhere. And the artificial intelligence market continues its race towards the estimated 4.8 trillion dollars by 2033.