Snappixify
At the tail end of March, can OpenAI still pull off a "blockbuster"?!
Unfortunately, this "blockbuster" is not the good kind. OpenAI didn't launch a killer feature this time, but instead officially announced that it will shut down its Sora AI video app and related APIs, directly stunning a crowd of netizens.
We are saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who has used Sora to create, share their work, and build a community around it: thank you. The works you created with Sora are incredibly meaningful, and we know this news is disappointing.
We will share more information soon, including a timeline for shutting down the app and API, as well as detailed plans on how to save your work.
As soon as the news came out, it caused a massive stir on the internet. Some people clapped their hands in joy, while others expressed deep regret, even asking a soul-searching question: Sora, who else can help me generate such crazy videos after you're gone?
Of course, there are also those who are relatively calm, merely stating: Oh? You're retreating from this "battlefield" so soon?
Some netizens even joked that at this moment, Elon Musk's corners of the mouth probably haven't dropped.
Although as a model, Sora made a stunning debut two years ago, the standalone application itself hasn't been online for very long, and was once positioned as one of OpenAI's most advanced generative media tools. In the end, after just a few short months, it met its shutdown fate.
Although the ending is bleak, Sora's trajectory can definitely be considered a wild start with a low finish. Do you still remember Sora's highlight moment when it first burst onto the scene?
Sora initially debuted with the "text-to-short-video generation" feature, rapidly gaining widespread attention with its ability to accurately restore camera movements and construct detailed scenes.
Last year, OpenAI followed up its success by launching an upgraded version of Sora, Sora 2, and simultaneously released a companion mobile application.
It achieved significant breakthroughs in physical authenticity, action coherence, and multimodal collaborative generation. It could more accurately simulate the laws of motion and interaction logic of objects, realistically presenting highly difficult scenes such as sports actions and complex human dynamics; it supported end-to-end generation of longer, more coherent video sequences, greatly enhancing narrative capabilities and visual immersion.
We thought Sora would develop faster and stronger in the future, but we didn't expect its curtain call to come the very next year.
In fact, all this is not without traces. Just shortly before the news of OpenAI shutting down the Sora platform was announced, multiple major game companies and film studios had been pressuring OpenAI to delete AI-generated content that infringed on intellectual property rights; this included well-known publishers like Square Enix and Bandai Namco, who had jointly filed this request through the "Content Overseas Distribution Association" (CODA).
In one sentence: Not that profitable, and prone to "causing trouble."
At the same time, The Hollywood Reporter also received confirmation from a Disney spokesperson that Disney decided to withdraw its planned $1 billion investment in the Sora platform.
It is reported that Disney originally intended to allow Sora users to generate videos containing Disney-licensed characters by inputting prompt words, and watch them directly on Disney+. Now that Sora is shutting down, this deal has also fallen through directly.
Of course, there are also reports stating that OpenAI's move is preparation for going public in the fourth quarter of this year.
To make the financial reports look better, the company decided to concentrate all resources on conquering the most profitable and core areas—commercial services and code development. Although video generation is cool, it consumes a huge amount of resources and its commercialization path remains unclear. On the eve of going public, choosing to cut these "fringe businesses" and "side gigs" is not only about cutting losses in time under the pressure of copyright disputes, but also about shifting precious computing resources and core teams from "showing off skills" to "making money."
Currently, OpenAI has integrated the ChatGPT desktop app, the coding tool Codex, and the browser into a single "super app" to unify goals across the company; this perhaps signifies the official end of OpenAI's era of independent video generation, entering a new phase fully oriented towards profitability and going public.
However, I'd bet you won't be distressed over the loss of one AI video generation platform. After all, when one Sora falls, tens of thousands of "alternatives" stand up.
