OpenAI Discontinues Sora Video Platform App

OpenAI is shutting down Sora, its generative-AI video creation platform it launched in December 2024. "The move is one of a number of steps OpenAI is taking to refocus on business and coding functions ahead of a potential initial public offering as soon as the fourth quarter of this year," reports the Wall Street Journal.

CEO Sam Altman announced the changes to staff on Tuesday. "We're saying goodbye to Sora," the Sora Team said in a post on X. "To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing. We'll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work."

Last week, OpenAI announced plans to combine its Atlas web browser, ChatGPT app, and Codex coding app into a singular desktop "superapp." "We realized we were spreading our efforts across too many apps and stacks, and that we need to simplify our efforts," said CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo. "That fragmentation has been slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want." This could behind the decision to kill Sora as the company redirects its resources and top talent towards productivity tools that benefit both enterprises and individual users.

Orly?

[CEC-P]

"Guys, for real, we're doing fine financially. Ignore the dozen lawsuits and lack of stable income and customer perception of our products. We're cancelling Sora because we don't like it. That's the reason. Trust me!" - Sam Altman, probably (paraphrased).

Re:Orly? [Eh? Asking for solution?]

[shanen]

I think that Subject was an artifact of a lust to FP. Care to explain? Most obvious candidate was "Only?", but I don't see how to fit it to the context. Maybe you mean that OpenAI should discontinue something else?

But I did have a funny idea. Another simplistic solution approach for the big problems (and of course doomed to fail for that reason among others). I'm a big believer in free speech, but here's a funny idea:

Should there be a tax on the profits from for-profit free speech?

Of course you should be ab

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"orly" is short for "oh really?", not a typo.

Re:

[Luckyo]

They lost this competition to Grok Imagine and ByteDance SeeDance in quality.

Those generate better video.

At the same time, video generation is exceptionally computationally expensive, so if you're not a front runner here, efforts to catch up are way more expensive than in pretty much all other forms of genAI.

Really?

[the_skywise]

"Focus on core values"

Yeah, BS.

Disney made a major investment and had them shut Sora down so Disney can use it in house exclusively.

Re:Really?

[applique]

Disney cancelled the deal: https://www.hollywoodreporter.... [hollywoodreporter.com]

Re:

[the_skywise]

Interesting... I'd be surprised that Sam would leave a BILLION on the table. I wonder if Disney pulled the plug with the new CEO trying to curry favor with the actor's union and that's why OpenAI decided to "refocus"

Re:

[EvilSS]

I'm not. Video generation is expensive, even by LLM standards. They needed a huge buy-in from industry to make it workable and all they got was the Disney deal. I suspect that the price they would need to charge to make it profitable is just too much to make it attractive to industry customers. Add in the issues with it in general and with getting it to work with long-form content and it's probably a non-starter right now.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

"Focus on core values"

OpenAI has values?

Ah, just remembered, "maximising shareholder value" is a sort of value. As you were.

Re:

[necro81]

Ah, just remembered, "maximising shareholder value" is a sort of value.

"Greed...is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms - greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my works, will not only save [OpenAI], but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much." [ref [youtube.com]"

Re:

[ranton]

Every company has values. A value is simply a judgement about what is important. Maximizing shareholder value is absolutely a company value (probably the most common one). Maximizing customer, employee, or society value would be different values a company could have. There are plenty of companies that focus on customer or society value, but they are usually nonprofit. If someone is investing in a company they usually expect to be the most import stakeholder to the company.

Most companies don't actually docum

What!?

[50000BTU_barbecue]

But how will morons entertain even dumber morons with AI slop cat videos???

Re:What!?

[supremebob]

Cat videos? Nah. Sora was all about bringing dead actors back to life in dumb 10 second skit comedies.

I'll bet that they generated about 20 TB of just Wilford Brimley memes, he was like the patron saint of that service.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

Yep, I used it around the holidays to parody Coke's use of AI to generate a commercial. [youtube.com] I mean, come on, Wilford Brimley taking a chug of Coke and then saying "diabeetus" is hilarious.

Re:

[ranton]

Sora was useless because the primary value from video generation is porn. Anyone not willing to allow porn shouldn't be wasting their time on GenAI video R&D.

Re:

[PPH]

Sora was all about bringing dead actors back to life in dumb 10 second skit comedies.

Ow! My balls! It is as the prophecy [wikipedia.org] foretold.

Diabeetus

[Sean Clifford]

Cat videos? Nah. Sora was all about bringing dead actors back to life in dumb 10 second skit comedies.

I'll bet that they generated about 20 TB of just Wilford Brimley memes, he was like the patron saint of that service.

Diabeetus!

Damn, now I won't be able to create Sora videos with lightsaber fighting cats or a mustachioed crusty old Wilford Brimley giving dire warnings of diabetes and crab people! What's this world coming to?

Re:What!?

[PPH]

Never mind this. When will the Retool and MongoDB ad banners meet in the middle?

Re:

[Local ID10T]

"Studies show that we can fill up to 80% of someone's visual field with ads before we induce a seizure." -RP1

Re:

[Powercntrl]

Never mind this. When will the Retool and MongoDB ad banners meet in the middle?

uBlock Origin custom filter and... it's gone. I recently snagged a MacBook Neo to play with and that was the first thing I downloaded. The internet is damn near unusable without a good adblocker.

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

I feel boxed in. It's ridiculous a this point. On a widescreen window, which most use unless they are phoneying - they take up 1/4 of the screen. The Retool ad doesn't even work right with Chrome's zoom set over 100% AND it's sucking up an entire CPU core doing ??? a glistening effect? FFS.

Re:

[test321]

The top banner reduced my participation to this site. The glowing effect eats CPU, so I just de-activate javascript and use less the site.

Writing vs. Production

[SlashbotAgent]

You're complaining about the content, essentially the "writing" of the "show". When properly instructed Sora could write decent shows. But, regardless of teh content. Sora's production quality is amazing.

Yes, cat videos suck because of the suject matter. But, the image quality and music that Sora produced is amazingly good and any old fool has the capability to make fantastic content with it.

Re:Writing vs. Production

[nightflameauto]

Yes, cat videos suck because of the suject matter.

Take it back, or get off the Internet.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

A big problem with Sora (and most current generation generative AI tools) is that you'd have to run the same prompt multiple times in order to get passible output. If you had the patience to roll the dice enough times, it might eventually produce something halfway decent before you ran out of your free daily credits.

I suppose the other problem was that since the internet is currently overflowing with AI slop anyway, so you're basically relegated to producing videos for your own amusement, which weakened th

Re:

[Powercntrl]

The resources were wasted the moment investors decided that funding this scheme was the best use of their money. To think otherwise is like the farcical belief that finding ways to extend the lifespan of consumer electronics reduces e-waste (you're only delaying the inevitable - the product will still eventually get thrown out).

SORA

[rossdee]

The Sherwood Oaks Residents Association had no comment to make.

Well, that's a progression

[Turkinolith]

OpenAI, from a non-profit pushing the tech forward, to a for-profit that tried to hold its position, to trying to become a public traded so their now trimming stuff to be more "investor friendly".

Ah, it's like the cycle of "enshitification" in rapid fire.

RIP small business options

[epicbread]

RIP also to all those little startups that use Sora to make ai video clips that popped up everywhere, especially the ones which offered lifetime access options..

It's obsolete

[Ken_g6]

The LTX 2 series appears able to do all the same things locally.

They can't afford it.

[supabeast!]

OpenAI probably shut Sora down so the Sora budget can go somewhere with a better looking future. Every week Altman's plans for data centers full of NVIDIA chips gobbling up incredible amounts of nuclear power get bigger. That money has to come from somewhere.

Atlas Browser

[clivedon]

I am not bothered by the shuttering of Sora, but this sneaky news in the last paragraph about merging Atlas AI browser functionality into their OpenAI and Codex app is a real disappointment. I probably won't let Atlas have a place on my computer - I think they will come to regret this move. Forcing unpopular products onto people through embedding in more popular products may not have the desired effect.

Re:

[anoncoward69]

I mean look at the back walking MS is now doing with ramming AI down our throats in every corner of Win 11 and the rest of their ecosystem of apps. For MS it might be too little too late with the Mac Neo having come out and a huge percent of the population already in the Apple ecosystem because of their phones and likely to wander that direction when it comes time for their next PC purchase, and then there's Linux for the rest of us. I finally got fed up with the MS bloat and AI bullshit last summer and too

Corporate bullshit translator

[WebHikerOriginal]

"We are getting our ass kicked by Anthropic, and need to focus on catchup instead of innovation"

Focus on core values.

[gary s]

I think the focus on core values means focus on core money making values. They have had people beta testing for them, now they kick them out and take back the fully tested out.

What they're not saying

[whitroth]

People are using Sora to strip classmates and co-workers naked, child porn, and, oh, yes, deepfakes of political opponents.

Re:

[PPH]

And the profitable business opportunities for Sora involve customers like Disney. Who don't want to be associated with porn.

AI prioritization

[jddimarco]

OpenAI needs to bet the farm on building models that can help build better models, to benefit from compounding effects. Models that make videos aren't that, hence goodby to Sora.