Event Summary
In late March 2026, OpenAI officially announced the closure of Sora's standalone application and API services. The Sora team stated that services would be gradually shut down, with a timeline for decommissioning and arrangements for users to save their content.
Reasons for Shutdown
- High operational costs: Sora's daily operating expenses reached approximately $1 million, while revenue failed to cover costs, leading to severe losses.
- User decline: The number of users plummeted from an early peak of 1 million to fewer than 500,000, further exacerbating cost pressures.
- Strategic shift: To address competition and optimize resources, OpenAI decided to reallocate computing power and talent to more productive areas such as AI agents, coding tools, and next-generation large language models.
