Merely six months after it launched as a standalone app, the Sora AI video generator app is riding into the sunset. The move is pretty surprising, as Google has ramped up its AI video efforts with Veo, while Chinese AI labels continue to deliver impressive results with products such as the viral Seedance AI video engine.
A quick death for a viral AI tool
“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,” OpenAI shared in a post. Interestingly, it was recently reported that OpenAI might eventually integrate Sora video generation capabilities within ChatGPT, similar to how Google has baked video generation within products such as Gemini and NotebookLM.
Soon after it made its debut, it was embroiled in controversy over copyright violations. Soon after, the company made a course correction, bringing more control for rightsholders such as Disney, and other companies with famous franchises were often reproduced, or copied by Sora. It seems the troubles were a little too much, and money was just not coming in.
What’s next for Sora?
Sunsetting the Sora app, but keeping it alive elsewhere, would have made sense. But it appears that Sora is being put on cold ice forever. According to The Wall Street Journal, the AI video generator will go away — for good. “In addition to the consumer app, OpenAI is also discontinuing a version of Sora for developers and won’t support video functionality inside ChatGPT, either,” the outlet reports.
Sora was among the first wave of mainstream AI products that injected senseless “AI slop” videos on the internet. Aside from the obvious copyright violations, it was abused for some morbidly disturbing trends. For example, it was used to create eerily realistic videos of deceased public figures, including Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, and Amy Winehouse.
These videos stirred plenty of online furor. But it won’t be the first such instance of its kind. AI birthed a whole trend where companies charged money to create videos of dead soldiers as a family goodbye for their families.