OpenAI is shutting down AI video generator Sora after just six months

In an abrupt announcement on Tuesday, OpenAI said it was “saying goodbye” to its AI video generator Sora. The move comes just six months after the company’s groundbreaking launch of a standalone app that lets people create hyper-realistic AI videos and share them in a scrolling social feed.

“To everyone who created, shared, and built a community with Sora: Thank you,” the company wrote in a post on X. “What you did with Sora was important, and we know this news is disappointing.”

OpenAI first made Sora publicly available in late 2024, but it wasn’t until the company launched Sora 2 and its standalone app last September that the video generator gained widespread attention. Just days after its release, it quickly captured the number one spot at the top of Apple’s App Store. People have created all sorts of absurd short videos, like Diana, Princess of Wales doing parkour and dogs driving cars. But the video generator also received criticism for violent and racist videos, as well as…