OpenAI Sora (Video Service)
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the business or product did
OpenAI Sora was a consumer-facing AI video-generation product, offered through a web experience and mobile app, with related API access. OpenAI introduced Sora 2 in September 2025. This record concerns the discontinued Sora product and API, not the unrelated HR software business named Sora and not a claim that all underlying video-model research has stopped.
02 / OpenAI Sora (Video Service) FAILURE REASONS
Factors and evidence limits
OpenAI confirms the product shutdown dates, but the cited official discontinuation notice does not establish a definitive commercial or technical cause. Product discontinuation should not be conflated with failure of the video-generation technology; claims about usage, unit economics or strategic motives need separate evidence.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Sora 2 introduced (30 September)
OpenAI publicly introduced Sora 2, the video-and-audio generation model, with a new Sora app.
- Sora app and web discontinued (26 April)
OpenAI says the Sora web and app experiences were discontinued on 26 April 2026.
- Sora API discontinued (24 September)
OpenAI says the Sora API was discontinued on 24 September 2026; an export route remains described in its help article.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Product-level outcome: the Sora consumer web/app and API are discontinued; this entry does not claim the whole OpenAI video research program ended.
- 02
Verified end dates are 26 April 2026 (web/app) and 24 September 2026 (API).
- 03
The public notice confirms the outcome, not a conclusive failure mechanism; retain economic and strategic hypotheses as unverified.
- 04
User-generated content and dependencies raise exit-planning questions: preserve exports and check API substitution before migration.