Sora suddenly "died" after spending $15 million a day! The team members were unaware, as they had been in a meeting with Disney the night before. In just 25 short months, why did OpenAI suddenly slam on the brakes?

“We have to say goodbye to Sora.”

On March 24, local time, OpenAI suddenly announced the termination of its AI video tool Sora’s related business.

No warning, no buffer. OpenAI issued a notice, pressing the stop button for Sora. Just the night before the announcement, the collaboration with Disney was still in progress, and some internal employees were completely unaware.

This AI video product, which once amazed the world with its disruptive technology, went from a meteoric rise to exit in just 25 months—amid high costs, commercialization obstacles, deepfakes, and copyright disputes, Sora’s sudden “brake” was both unexpected and had been foreshadowed.

Meeting just the night before: Sora “sudden stop,” only “lived” for 25 months

On March 24, local time, OpenAI officially announced the closure of its once-popular Sora video generation app, and the previously announced three-year, $1 billion collaboration with Disney has fallen through.

A Disney spokesperson stated that they respect “OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and shift focus to other areas.” Just three months ago, OpenAI announced a three-year licensing agreement with Disney, allowing Sora users to create videos using over 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars.

Image source: X

This once globally stunning text-to-video star product went from debuting (releasing the Sora technical preview) to being stopped in just 25 months.

It is reported that Sora’s iOS application, API interface services, and Sora.com website will all cease operations, with a specific timeline to be announced soon. Currently, OpenAI’s executive team has shifted its research focus to robotics and general artificial intelligence (AGI) and is integrating more technical capabilities into the ChatGPT application.

“This change is really surprising,” said an insider.

According to media reports, even some Sora team employees only learned of the company’s decision that day. Just 30 minutes after the meeting discussing a Sora-related project, the Disney team unexpectedly found out that OpenAI would abandon Sora.

On March 23, OpenAI published a blog post titled “Creating with Sora Safely” on its official website, emphasizing the safety measures of the Sora 2 model and Sora application for creative purposes. On March 19, Sora also underwent a functional update, launching an editor feature on iOS and the web, allowing users to complete video generation and editing in one go.

From meteoric rise to decline: Over a million downloads in 5 days, now only 3 million daily active users

In February 2024, OpenAI released the Sora technical preview. The official demo video, with its realistic physical effects and scene restoration capabilities, sparked global attention in the tech community, being hailed as a “milestone in AI video generation.”

In December 2024, Sora was officially launched, allowing users to create videos from text.

In September 2025, OpenAI officially released Sora 2, further enhancing physical simulation realism and interaction capabilities, and simultaneously launched a standalone Sora App, entering the AI video social space, promising users an easier way to generate and share realistic AI videos in a quasi-social network.

The launch of Sora 2 generated significant hype, with some claiming it would disrupt social media and become the “AI version of TikTok.” Data shows that within 5 days of the Sora App’s launch, global downloads exceeded 1 million, quickly topping the free overall charts in the App Store in major markets like the U.S. and China.

However, data from app intelligence firm Appfigures indicates that the Sora App’s download volume fell by 32% year-over-year in December last year, and another 45% in January this year, dropping to 1.2 million. Its ranking in the U.S. App Store fell outside the top 100.

Image source: Appfigures

According to a16z data, from October 2025 to March 2026, Sora’s daily active users showed an overall upward trend. In March of this year, daily active users stabilized around 3 million. In comparison, ChatGPT has nearly 900 million weekly active users.

Image source: a16z

Burning over $5 billion a year but only earning $2.1 million: High-cost model fails to sustain commercial reality

Sora’s productization has been burdened with high computing costs from the beginning.

According to media reports, OpenAI executives have been discussing Sora’s fate for a long time. One of the core reasons for abandoning Sora is that operating this AI video application requires a massive amount of computing resources, leaving less “firepower” for other teams in the company.

In fact, when OpenAI officially launched Sora in December 2024, it already acknowledged that while Sora Turbo was faster than the February preview version, the company was still working to “make this technology affordable for everyone,” with cost pressure existing from the outset of productization.

According to estimates by analyst Deepak Mathivanan from Cantor Fitzgerald, OpenAI incurs about $1.3 for generating a 10-second video.

So, how much has OpenAI actually spent on Sora? According to media estimates, this figure exceeds $5 billion annually, equivalent to about $15 million per day.

However, the returns do not match the investment. In October last year, OpenAI’s Sora head Bill Peebles stated, “The current economic situation is completely unsustainable.”

Media reports indicate that during its brief lifespan, Sora only generated about $2.1 million in in-app purchase revenue, far from covering the high operational costs.

Data from Appfigures shows that Sora App user spending dropped from a peak of $540,000 in December last year to $367,000 in January this year.

Image source: Appfigures

Media reports suggest that OpenAI’s contraction is aimed at focusing its business on more profitable coding tools and enterprise clients.

The rapid growth of competitors in the enterprise market has put immense pressure on OpenAI. According to the latest statistics from fintech company Ramp, a year ago, only 1 in 25 enterprise clients used Anthropic; now it has risen to nearly a quarter.

Image source: Ramp

Ramp also pointed out that in the battle for new clients, Anthropic has captured about 70% of the initial procurement share.

Last year, OpenAI continuously launched new products, including Sora, the AI browser Atlas, hardware devices, etc. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman compared this strategy to “simultaneously incubating multiple entrepreneurial projects within the company.”

In contrast, Anthropic’s product layout is more focused, concentrating its efforts on enterprise services and the programming market. To date, the company has not launched any image or video generation products.

This month, OpenAI’s application business head Fidji Simo clearly stated at an all-hands meeting, “We cannot be distracted by ‘side tasks’ and must excel in productivity, especially in enterprise productivity.”

Additionally, according to media reports citing informed sources, OpenAI’s IPO could be completed as early as the fourth quarter of this year. Last month, OpenAI announced it had completed $110 billion in financing, with a valuation of $730 billion. Amazon pledged to invest $50 billion as the lead investor, while SoftBank and Nvidia each contributed $30 billion.

At such a juncture, the cutting of the high-investment, low-return Sora is seen by outsiders as an inevitable choice to return to rationality and focus on profitability.

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