OpenAI is shutting down Sora video platform, less than a year after launch that CEO Sam Altman said will ‘teach’ company to think ambitiously about its product road map
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has is now shutting down its Sora video platform less than a year after its high-profile launch. According to a report by Wall Street Journal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman informed the staff that the company will discontinue products that use its video models, including the consumer app, developer version and video functionality inside ChatGPT. This move is part of a broader strategy to refocus resources on business and coding tools as OpenAI is gearing up for a potential IPO later this year.
OpenAI Sora ’s journey: From ambitious launch to quite exit
OpenAI launched Sora video platform in September last year. The tool was designed as a TikTok-style feed for sharing AI-generated videos. Altman also encouraged the users to splice him into famous cultural scenes, positioning the app as a bold experiment to push OpenAI’s product roadmap. However, despite the fanfare, Sora struggled to gain the desired traction and the employees also questioned the heavy computing resources which were devoted to it.
Copyright battles and Disney deal collapse
The rollout of Sora was marred by copyright concerns, as it initially lacked the guardrails to protect the content owners. However, OpenAI later added controls, but it was too late as the damage was already done. In December, Disney accounted a $1 billion investment tied to licensing over 200 characters for Sora, enabling users to create videos with various popular icons such as Luke Skywalker or Toy Story’s Woody. This deal has now collapsed as Disney said it respects OpenAI’s decision to exit video generation.
OpenAI to focus on productivity and robotics
With the shut down of Sora video platform, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also said that Sora team will pivot to longer-term bets such as robotics, while OpenAI consolidates its consumer offerings into a single “superapp” combining ChatGPT, Codex, and its browser. The OpenAI executives have also stressed on the need to avoid “side quests” and instead build agentic AI systems capable of autonomously writing software, analyzing data, and supporting enterprise users.
OpenAI working on Superapp
OpenAI is combining its ChatGPT app, Codex coding agent, and Atlas browser into a single desktop ‘superapp,’ the company confirmed—a consolidation move that signals a sharp pivot away from last year’s sprawling, launch-everything strategy. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, will lead the effort alongside President Greg Brockman, with the stated goal of cutting down on fragmentation that, in Simo’s own words, has been “slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want.“The move was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, with CNBC independently confirming the details shortly after.The new unified app will be built around Codex, which has grown to over two million weekly active users—nearly four times its figure from January, per Simo’s own posts on X. OpenAI plans to add agentic features to Codex first, so the app can handle productivity tasks beyond coding, before folding in ChatGPT and Atlas. The mobile ChatGPT app will remain separate and unchanged.
