This is the first big step for ChatGPT makers to focus their business on more profitable areas such as coding tools.
Published March 25, 2026
OpenAI will shut down its social media app “Sora”. The app went viral late last year as a place to share short videos generated by artificial intelligence, but it also set off alarm bells in Hollywood and elsewhere.
OpenAI said in a short social media message Tuesday that it is “saying goodbye to the Sora app” and will soon share information on how users can save what they’ve already created on the app.
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“What you did with Sora was important. I know this news is disappointing,” he said.
The company behind ChatGPT released Sora in September in an attempt to garner attention and potentially advertising dollars following short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube, or Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook.
But a growing number of advocacy groups, academics, and experts have raised concerns about the risk of having people create AI videos about just about anything they can type into a prompt, leading to the proliferation of nonconsensual images and realistic deepfakes amid a sea of benign “AI slop.”
OpenAI was forced to crack down on AI productions featuring celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mister Rogers doing outlandish things, following protests from family estates and actors’ unions.
Disney, which signed a deal with OpenAI last year to provide its characters to Sora, said in a statement Tuesday that it respects “OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and shift its priorities to other areas.”
On Monday night, the Walt Disney and OpenAI teams were collaborating on a project related to Sora. Just 30 minutes after the meeting, the Disney team was blindsided by the news that OpenAI was discontinuing the tool entirely, according to people familiar with the matter.
OpenAI publicly announced the move on Tuesday.
“It was a huge nuisance,” said a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity.
tedious process
The move is the first major step for the ChatGPT maker to focus its business on more profitable areas such as coding tools and enterprise customers.
But Sora’s sudden cancellation shows how disruptive the streamlining process can be as OpenAI prepares to make its stock market debut as early as later this year.
Sora’s decision marks the end of a major $1 billion deal between Disney and the ChatGPT maker that was announced a little more than three months ago. As part of the three-year agreement, Disney announced it will invest $1 billion in OpenAI and lend more than 200 iconic characters to be used in short AI-generated videos.
But the deal between the two companies never went through and no money was exchanged, according to two other people familiar with the matter.
