By Gavin Boyle
ChatGPT maker OpenAI announced it will shut down Sora, its popular video generation tool, only months after it was released.
“We’re saying goodbye to Sora,” the Sora team wrote on X. “To everyone who created with Sora, shared it and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing. We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work.”
Related: Why Can’t OpenAI Win Over Hollywood?
Sora was the OpenAI’s standalone video generation tool which garnered extreme popularity right away as it was free to use. The cost of running the service, however, quickly added up, and OpenAI transitioned into a pay-to-use model for those wishing to generate clips with Sora.
Meanwhile, the tool quickly received disdain from Hollywood because it originally had little to no IP protections, allowing users to brazenly violate copyright. Sora eventually introduced safeguards to protect against copyright infringements, but, by that time, the world had already seen what was possible. The tool caught the imagination of one company in particular, as Disney later signed a deal with OpenAI, investing $1 billion in Sora and announcing the technology would be introduced onto Disney+ for users to generate their own videos with over 100 Disney characters.
“Technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world,” said then-Disney CEO Bob Iger when the deal was announced. “The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”
With the shutting down of Sora, this deal has been canceled as well, and it remains unclear if Disney will pursue another AI video generation company to deliver the vision it had with Sora.
“As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere,” a Disney spokesperson said about the cancellation of the deal. “We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators.”
ChatGPT users will, for now, still be able to generate videos through the chatbot. However, ending Sora marks the first major casualty of the AI industry and reveals that even if a product enjoys wide popularity, it may not be worth the cost to operate.
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