OpenAI is shutting down its Sora video generation app, incidentally ending a $1 billion deal with Disney in the process.
Sora unnerved the entertainment industry when it was launched in 2024, with its rapid creation of photo-quality video from text prompts. But it is expensive: Forbes estimated that the company spends $15 million a day making user-demanded videos, and an executive called it âcurrently completely unsustainable.â
Disney had agreed to invest in return for allowing the use of its characters, but that is now off; OpenAI, under pressure from rival Anthropic and perhaps with an eye on an upcoming IPO, is focusing on the more lucrative coding business and longer-term bets such as robotics, The Wall Street Journal reported.