OpenAI shut down Sora, its AI video app, less than six months after launch. The app and website went dark on 26 April 2026, and the Sora API is scheduled to switch off on 24 September 2026. OpenAI announced the decision in a post on X on 24 March 2026.
What Is Already Gone, and What Ends on 24 September
The consumer product is finished, and only the developer API is still running on a fixed end date.
- Sora app and website: shut down on 26 April 2026 at 11:59pm Pacific time, covering the iOS app, the Android app and the sora.chatgpt.com site.
- Sora API: scheduled for removal on 24 September 2026, described by OpenAI as a cutoff date rather than a phased deprecation.
- OpenAI consumer video: no replacement. OpenAI has not launched another video generation product for consumers since the app closed.
As of 15 September 2026, that leaves developers a little over a week to move anything built on Sora to another provider. OpenAI has not named a successor video model, so there is no in-house option to migrate to.
Why Did OpenAI Shut Down Sora?
Sora cost far more to run than it earned, its audience shrank, and OpenAI redirected the computing power toward coding and enterprise products.
According to Wall Street Journal reporting cited by TechCrunch, Sora’s worldwide user base peaked at roughly one million and then fell below 500,000, while the service burned through about $1 million a day in computing costs. Sam Altman made the decision to close it and free up that capacity.
The money coming back the other way was small. App analytics firm Appfigures counted about $1.4 million in total consumer spending on Sora by late January 2026, of which roughly $1.1 million came from the United States. Monthly spending had already turned down, from about $540,000 in December 2025 to $367,000 in January 2026.
The strategy shift was explicit. In a company-wide meeting in March 2026, OpenAI’s applications chief Fidji Simo told staff that the company could not miss the moment because it was “distracted by side quests”, and called Anthropic’s success with enterprise and coding customers a “wake-up call”. Sora was one of the side quests, and the closure came weeks before questions about the timing of an OpenAI listing intensified.
Sora From Preview to Shutdown: The Timeline
Sora went from a headline-grabbing research demo to a closed product in just over two years.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 15 February 2024 | OpenAI previews Sora with its first demonstration videos |
| 9 December 2024 | Sora opens to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users in the US and Canada |
| End of September 2025 | Sora 2 launches with a standalone iOS app; Android follows two months later |
| 11 December 2025 | Disney announces a $1 billion investment and a three-year character licence |
| 29 January 2026 | Downloads and spending are reported in steep decline |
| 24 March 2026 | OpenAI posts “We’re saying goodbye to Sora” on X |
| 17 April 2026 | Bill Peebles, who led Sora, announces he is leaving OpenAI |
| 26 April 2026 | App and website shut down |
| 24 September 2026 | Sora API scheduled to be discontinued |
The launch itself was one of the strongest OpenAI had run. Appfigures recorded 100,000 installs on the first day, an invite-only iOS release that still reached number one on the US App Store and passed a million downloads faster than the ChatGPT app had. Cumulative installs across iOS and Android reached about 9.6 million by late January 2026.
The fall was just as fast. Downloads dropped 32 per cent month on month in December 2025 and a further 45 per cent in January 2026. By 29 January 2026 the app sat at number 101 on the overall US App Store chart and number 181 among free apps on Google Play in the US.
What Happens to the Videos You Already Made?
They are deleted once the cutoff dates pass, and OpenAI has not committed to a final export window afterwards.
OpenAI told users that videos and images could be exported directly from the Sora library before the shutdown, and urged people to download anything they wanted to keep. The company said it had not decided whether any export route would remain open after the cutoff dates.
For anyone who missed the April deadline, there is no published recovery path. The practical position is that content not downloaded before the relevant date should be treated as gone.
How Sora’s Closure Killed Disney’s $1 Billion Investment
Disney dropped a planned $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI within days of the Sora announcement, and no money ever changed hands.
The deal was announced on 11 December 2025. Under a three-year licensing agreement, Sora users would have been able to generate videos featuring more than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, and Disney+ was to carry curated selections of the results.
Trade reporting on the collapse said Disney learned of Sora’s discontinuation less than an hour before the public announcement, and that no formal agreement had been signed. Disney said it respected OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business, and that it would continue to engage with AI platforms while “responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators”.
Is Sora Coming Back?
Not as a consumer app. OpenAI has announced no plans to relaunch it and no successor video product.
What survives is the research. OpenAI has said the Sora team’s work continues as world simulation research aimed at robotics and modelling the physical world, rather than as a product people can sign up for. That is a different goal from generating shareable clips on a phone.
The people most associated with the product have also moved on. Bill Peebles, who led Sora, announced his departure on 17 April 2026, the same period in which Kevin Weil left the company. In his exit note, Peebles credited Sora with prompting a large amount of industry investment in video, and argued that this kind of research needs room away from a company’s main roadmap.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many People Were Using Sora When It Closed?
Its worldwide user base peaked at around one million and had dropped below 500,000 before the shutdown, according to Wall Street Journal reporting cited by TechCrunch in March 2026.
Who Created Sora, and Is He Still at OpenAI?
Bill Peebles led the Sora project. He announced he was leaving OpenAI on 17 April 2026, about three weeks after the shutdown was made public.
Can ChatGPT Still Make Videos?
No. OpenAI has had no consumer video generation product since the Sora app closed on 26 April 2026, and has not announced one.
Was the Shutdown Caused by Deepfake and Copyright Complaints?
OpenAI did not give those as reasons. Reporting on the decision pointed to running costs of about $1 million a day, falling usage, and a shift of computing capacity toward coding and enterprise products.
