OpenAI to Cease Operations of Sora Video Application
Jakarta (ANTARA) - OpenAI has officially announced that it will cease operations of the Sora application, its generative AI video creation service.
The app, which was released only last year, is being discontinued by OpenAI without disclosing the reasons behind it, as reported by Variety on Tuesday (24/3) local time.
“We bid farewell to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built a community around it: thank you,” stated the OpenAI Sora team in a post on the social media platform X.
They also added, “We will share more soon, including timelines for the app and API, as well as details on how users can save their work.”
This announcement comes just three months after Disney signed a breakthrough agreement with OpenAI.
Under the three-year licensing agreement, Sora will be able to generate videos requested by users featuring more than 200 characters with Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars themes.
Sora and ChatGPT Images will generate “fan-inspired” videos with licensed Disney characters starting in early 2026 - with Disney+ adding curated Sora-generated video options.
Disney, through its representative, issued a statement on the step taken by OpenAI. The media giant stated that it appreciates OpenAI for no longer creating videos using AI and redirecting its capabilities to other priorities.
They also stated, “We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technology that respects IP and creators’ rights.”
At that time, the company promised highly realistic AI videos, raising concerns among Hollywood artists given the opt-out model of Sora 2, which requires IP owners to proactively mark that they want their copyrighted works excluded from the system.
In November 2025, the Japanese content trade group CODA, whose members include animation studio Studio Ghibli, issued a letter to OpenAI demanding that the AI company stop using their content to train Sora 2.
After the trial period ended, the company finally released the first version of Sora in December of that year.
Then, in September 2025, OpenAI specifically released the standalone Sora app.
With the closure of the Sora app, ChatGPT will no longer generate videos based on text prompts.