Popular App Shut Down After Just 6 Months, Merely a Waste of Money

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - OpenAI is closing its AI-based video app, Sora, only six months after its launch, which had gone viral among users. The company announced the decision on Tuesday local time.

“We bid farewell to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built a community around it: thank you,” OpenAI wrote, quoted from CNBC International, Wednesday (25/3/2026).

“What you created with Sora matters, and we know this news is disappointing,” the statement added.

Nevertheless, Sora had recorded impressive performance by surpassing 1 million downloads in less than five days since its launch at the end of September and had topped the Apple App Store.

However, behind this popularity, OpenAI is now pressing to reduce operational costs amid efforts to support a jumbo valuation of US$730 billion and pave the way for an initial public offering (IPO).

This move also reflects a change in the company’s strategy. OpenAI is beginning to rein in several ambitious projects and opting to focus on being a large cloud capacity buyer, rather than building massive data centres itself.

In addition to closing Sora, OpenAI is also halting the development of the Instant Checkout shopping feature and merging several of its products—the browser, ChatGPT, and Codex—into a single super desktop app.

On the partnership side, the US$1 billion investment plan from Disney, previously announced in December, has also been cancelled. Disney stated that it respects OpenAI’s decision.

“We respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video production business and redirect its priorities to other areas,” said a Disney representative.

Going forward, OpenAI will redirect its focus to AI uses with high productivity, especially in the enterprise segment.

“What is most important to us right now is to stay focused and execute very well,” said OpenAI CEO, Fidji Simo.